THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


CICKKO. 
Antique  bust  in  tlie  Vatican. 


^INTRODUCTION   TO  CLASSICAL 
LATIN   LITERATURE 


BY 

WILLIAM   CRANSTON   LAWTON 

PEOFESSOR    OF   THE    GREEK    LANGUAGE    AND    LITERATURE 
tN    ADELPHI   COLLEGE 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1904 


•^larit 


COPTKIGHT,   1904,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


•      ••••*. 


.  *  *       • 


•  I  • 


.,.,*..•.• ••••        ••      *    •     ••    ••• 

•     •  • 
•  ••  «  •    ••  •*•    •    •••••• 


«  C  «  a   *  ^ 


.      •.  •   •  ••    c  *  • 


.    •  •  .    . 


TROW  DIRECTOHr 

PRINTINQ  AND  BOOKBINDtNO  COMPANV 

MEW  YORK 


T/A, 


L44-  '^ 


J,  H.  S. 

/Dbost  ©encrous  of  Colleagues 

wbo  bas  maDe  tbfs  book 

possible 


<i^  .'  i  i-'-m"-^. 

CONTENTS 

£00K  I 

THE   REPUBLICAN   AGE 

CHAPTBB  PAGE 

fq        I.  Traces  of  Early  Latin  Poetry  and  Prose          .         .  13 

pj        II.  The  Transition  to  Hellenism        .....  21 

*        III.  Age  of  the  Scipios  and  Cato 28 

o       IV.  Ennius 32 

"*         V.  Plautus 38 

-•       VI.  Terence  and  his  Friends 49 

VII.  Lost  Works  and  Authors  op  the  Republican  Period  56 

Chronological  Tables 64 


BOOK  II 

THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

CHAPTER 

VIII.  The  Time  and  the  Man 69 

IX.  Cicero  as  an  Orator 73 

X.  The  Ciceronian  Correspondence 80 

XI.  The  Rhetorical  Works 85 

XII.  The  Philosophical  Essays,  and  Other  Works  .        .  89 

XIII.  C^SAR 98 

XIV.  Sallust  and  Nepos 104 

XV.  Marcus  Terentius  Varro 109 

XVI.  Catullus  and  his  Friends 114 

vii 


Vm  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVII.  Lucretius    .         .^       .  126 

XVIII.  The  Decay  of  Drama 137 

XIX.  Retrospect  and  Prospect 141 

Chronological  Tables      .         .         .        .        .         .        .        .143 


BOOK  III 
THE  AUGUSTAN  AGE 


CHAPTER 

XX.  Republic  and  Empire 
XXI.  Virgil. 
XXII.  LivY     . 

XXIII.  Horace 

XXIV.  Ovid     . 
XXV.  The  Elegiac  Poets 

XXVI.  The  Aftermath 

Chronological  Tables 


149 
155 
178 
18G 
203 
215 
223 

228 


BOOK  IV 

THE   AGE   OF    SILVER   LATIN 

CHAPTER 

XXVII.  The  Early  Empire 233 

XXVIII.  Seneca 239 

XXIX.  Contemporaries  op  Seneca 252 

XXX.  The  Epic  Poetry 200 

XXXI.  Martial  and  Juvenal 272 

XXXIL  Quintilian 281 

XXXIII.  The  Plinies 287 

XXXIV.  Tacitus 295 

Chronological  Tables 307 

Epilogue 310 

INDEX 321 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Cicero   ..........     Frontispiece 

Antique  bust  in  the  Vatican. 


State  Sacrifice  at  Rome 

Antique  relief  in  the  Louvre. 

Tomb  of  Scipio  Barbatus,  now  in  the  Vatican 

The  Claudian  Aqueduct 

Monument  of  a  Roman  Vice-centurion    . 
From  Baumeister. 


Roman  Warfare 

Belief  from  the  Trajan  column. 

General  View  of  the  Forum,  with  the  Capitol 


Julius  Caesar         ........ 

Antique  bust  in  the  Capitoline  Museum. 

Falls  of  the  Anio  at  Tivoli,  the  Ancient  Tibur  . 

Latin  Text  of  the  Testament  of  Augustus    . 
On  the  temple  wall  at  Ancyra. 

Virgil,  Horace,  and  Varius  at  the  House  of  M^cenas 
By  Ch.  F.  Jalabert. 

Melpomene,  Virgil,  and  Clio    ...... 

Hadrumetum  mosaic  at  Susa,  Tunisia. 

Georgics,  IV.,   118-124,  and  Illustration 
From  a  Virgil  manuscript  in  the  Vatican. 

.^NEiD,  IV.,  56-61,  AND  Illustration        .... 
From  a  Virgil  manuscript  in  the  Vatican. 

Ancient  Gate  of  the  Citadel  of  Falerii 
From  a  woodcut  in  Duruy's  History  of  Kome. 

Roman  Ships  ......••• 

From  the  Trajan  column. 


PACING 
I'AOE 


17 
1!) 

32 

42 

73 

98 


l;32 
152 

155 

160 

166 

172 

182 

219 


X  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACING 
PAGE 

Augustus 226 

Antique  bust  in  the  Capitoline  Museum. 

Nero's  Living  ToR«iiES 234 

By  Siemiradzki. 

So-called  Seneca         .........  244 

Antique  bronze  bust  from  Herculaneum,  now  in  Naples  Museum. 

Roman  Soldiers  Carrying  the  Golden  Candlestick  from 

THE  Temple  at  Jerusalem  .......  264 

Relief  on  the  Arch  of  Titus. 

Interior  View  of  the  Coliseum        ......  273 

Christian  Martyrs  in  the  Coliseum 294 

By  Gerome. 

Marcus  Aurelius 311 

Equestrian  statue  on  the  Capitoline. 

Hadrian 317 

Antique  bust  in  the  Vatican. 


INTRODUCTION    TO    CLASSICAL 
LATIN    LITERATURE 


LATIN   LITERATURE 

INTRODUCTION 

The  various  types  of  civilized  European  man,  which 
even  in  their  older  homes  are  steadily  assimilating  and 
approaching  each  other,  are  upon  our  own  continent,  and 
especially  in  our  own  land,  swiftly  fusing  into  one.  It  is 
peculiarly  important  for  the  American,  therefore,  to  study 
the  various  currents  that  meet  in  ourselves.  Teuton, 
Norman  and  Kelt,  Slav,  Latin  and  Greek,  are  all  in  vary- 
ing degree  our  ancestors.  Moreover,  it  is  doubly  interest- 
ing gradually  to  realize  that  most  of  these  races  have 
already  had,  for  at  least  two  thousand  years,  a  common, 
unified,  and  unbroken  history.  All  play  a  part  in  the 
large  story  of  European  life. 

So  far  as  literary  monuments  are  concerned,  we  attempt 
here  to  outline  the  second  chapter  of  that  long  story. 
Naturally,  a  most  needful  preparation  is  a  perusal  of  the 
first.  In  other  words,  Latin  literature  should  be  ap- 
proached after  a  sympathetic  acquaintance  with  the  master- 
pieces of  the  Greek  imagination.  Indeed,  the  influence  of 
Hellenes  and  Romans  upon  ourselves  is  largely  one.  Such 
an  adjective  as  Graeco-Roman  has  often  a  fitness  of  its  own. 
Yet  the  contrasts  between  the  two  chief  peoples  of  an- 
tiquity make  a  striking  and  tempting  theme. 

The  Greek  whom  we  really  know,  in  early  literature,  is 
the   Eastward   Ionian.      Counting  himself,   even   in   his 

1 


2  INTRODUCTION" 

Asian  seats,  an  exile,  he  holds  his  home-ties  lightly.  He 
wanders  forth  gladly  for  traffic,  for  adventure,  to  far-off 
colonial  settlements,  or,  especially  if  an  artist,  to  the  courts 
of  Greek  tyrants  and  even  of  barbarian  patrons.  He  is 
awake  to  all  impressions  from  the  picturesque,  varied,  swift- 
changing  world  about  him.  The  contrast  between  his  own 
nature  and  that  of  other  races  strikes  him  forcibly.  The 
supreme  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  even,  he  faces  with 
wide-open  eyes.  Gods,  dasmons,  nymphs,  he  readily 
shapes  for  himself,  preferably  in  human  form.  Projecting 
his  own  desires,  loves,  hates,  into  the  infinite,  the  Greek 
dreamer  tells  himself  marvelous  tales  of  divinities  and 
demigods.  The  myths  of  early  Hellas  are  the  delight  of 
childhood  still. 

The  enjoyment  of  beauty,  the  power  of  expression, 
awoke  early.  If  the  lonians  learned,  from  the  Phoenician 
or  elsewhere,  their  alphabet,  the  arts  of  trade,  the  way 
across  the  stepping-stones  of  the  ^gean  to  ever  remoter 
wandering,  the  yet  bolder  roving  paths  of  the  human 
fancy, — they  quickly  bettered  their  teachings.  So  epic, 
philosophic  inquiry,  lyric,  prose  chronicle,  sprang  up  in 
swift  succession  among  the  children  of  the  myth -makers. 

Of  large  statecraft  there  is  little  trace.  Individualism 
is  excessive.  The  Asiatic  cities,  of  kindred  speech,  re- 
ligion, culture,  lived  out  each  its  isolated  and  turbulent 
life,  to  fall  an  early  and  easy  prey  to  Oriental  conquerors. 
Of  yet  greater  individual  energy,  and  much  creative  pow- 
er, with  even  less  fitness  for  civic  organism,  we  catch  a 
glimpse  in  the  yEolic  Greeks,  especially  on  the  lovely 
island  of  Lesbos. 

At  Athens,  in  the  century  of  Pericles,  we  find  a  larger 
form  of  civic  life,  rushing  to  swift  wreck,  however,  on  the 
reefs  of  selfish  aggression,  conquest,  empire.  Yet  there 
was  time,  barely  time,  for  tragedy,  most  elaborate  of 
literary  forms,   to  attain  perfection.     Comedy,   political 


INTRODUCTION  3 

history,  oratory,  philosophic  speculation,  found  supreme 
ex})ression  in  Aristophanes,  Thukydides,  Demosthenes, 
Plato.     The  last  is  in  spirit  a  great  imaginative  poet  also. 

Theocritos,  and  the  Anthology,  show  us  that  the  fresh 
original  imagination  of  early  Hellas  lived  on  far  into  the 
decadent  centuries.  Indeed  this  creative  power  of  the 
Greek  man  is  the  supreme  miracle  of  European  history. 
It  is  still  to  be  seen  in  his  sculpture  and  architecture  no 
less,  while  of  his  painting  and  music  we  have  received 
little  more  than  a  loving  tradition.  Of  minor  artists,  such 
as  carvers  of  gems  or  decorators  of  vases,  there  seem  to 
have  been  legions,  not  merely  in  Periclean  Athens,  but  in 
many  Greek  lands  and  centuries. 

The  little  Laconian  garrison,  encamped  amid  a  host  of 
stubborn-hearted  vanquished  foes,  of  slaves  with  the  spirit 
of  freemen,  maintained  itself  wonderfully,  but  the  wider 
power  and  wealth  thrust  upon  Sparta,  as  by  accident,  in 
479  B.C.  and  again  in  404  B.C.,  found  her  quite  unfit  to 
use  them.  Her  sluggish  Dorian  nature  was  excited,  but 
dazed  by  such  widening  vistas  of  duty,  and  she  soon  cowered 
into  her  narrow  shell  again.  The  poets  and  other  artists  of 
Lacouia  had  been,  from  the  first,  chiefly  guests,  of  ^olic 
or  Ionian  birth. 

With  all  its  unique  genius,  the  Greek  race  failed  to  be- 
come a  dominant  nation,  or  even  an  united  free  people. 
It  is  not  safe  to  attribute  this  lack  chiefly  to  the  peculiar 
physical  contour  of  their  little  peninsula,  to  the  isolation 
of  each  dale  or  hill-crest.  The  most  peaceful  and  lasting 
confederation  in  Europe  unites  the  vales  and  peaks  of 
Switzerland.  The  lack  of  union  among  Greeks  is  at  least 
as  marked  in  Ionia,  or  in  Sicily.  It  was  probably  inherent 
in  the  Hellenic  nature.  Politically  they  seem  almost  a 
race  of  gifted  children,  who  never  accepted  the  restraints 
of  full  manhood,  the  compromises  of  civic  life. 

In  the  ideal  commonwealth  there  will  be  the  utmost 


4  INTRODUCTIOK 

individual  freedom,  the  utmost  encouragement  of  original 
and  creative  genius,  but  all  powers  will  be  regarded  as  con- 
secrated to  the  public  service. 

Rome  grew  up  at  the  northernmost  point  of  Latium, 
pushed  like  a  wedge  into  hostile  territory,  but  strongly 
protected  by  the  Tiber,  and  uplifted  upon  the  Palatine 
and  Capitoline.  The  names  of  Numa  and  Lars  Porsena 
are  plainly  monuments  respectively  of  early  Sabine  and 
Etruscan  conquest,  which  must  have  left  also  permanent 
elements  in  the  population.  Latian,  however,  the  little 
hill-city  always  remained. 

Early  Latium  is  a  home  of  sturdy,  unimaginative  peas- 
antry. Each  man  held  firmly  his  ploughshare,  or,  if  need 
be,  the  pike,  knowing  little  of  music  or  song,  nothing  of 
adventurous  wandering,  real  or  imagined.  His  gods  were 
but  faint  personifications  of  the  most  prosaic  realities. 
Janus  presided  over  the  changing  year.  Terminus  over  the 
boundary-stone,  Volutina  is  the  fair  goddess  of  corn-shucks. 
Ancestors,  like  Picus  and  Faunus,  may  fitly  be  worshipped 
at  the  family  hearth  as  Lares,  but  few  picturesque  legends 
grow  up  about  the  names.  Each  man's  genius  follows  or 
guides  him  through  the  sober  phases  of  a  monotonous  life. 

This  absence  of  myth,  of  fancy,  is  the  most  striking  trait 
in  the  Roman  nature.  Their  one  poet  who  feels  adequately 
the  reverent  sympathy  of  a  Wordsworth,  or  a  Bryant,  with 
Nature,  in  her  wilder  and  lonelier  aspects,  is  a  materialist 
and  an  atheist.  The  one  chronicler  who  has  much  of 
Herodotos's  grace  as  a  story-teller  has  but  a  single  type 
of  tale  to  tell.  Heroic  and  stoical  self-sacrifice  for  the 
Fatherland  is  his  constant  theme. 

Such  a  people  will  have  to  be  taught  not  merely  the 
alphabet  but  the  whole  art  of  poetry :  and  they  will  hardly 
surpass  tlieir  teachers.  The  concession  that  Virgil  makes 
for  the  plastic  arts,  for  science,  and  even,  too  sweepingly. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

for  forensic  oratory,  might  well  have  included  his  own 
craft  as  well.  He  is  thinking  of  Greeks,  only,  when  he 
cries  : 

Virgil's  /Eneid,         "  Others  will  mould  more  deftly  the  breathing 

VI.,  847-53.  bronze,  I  concede  it, 

Or  from  the  marble  block  lead  forth  the  face  of  the  living  : 
Others  excel  in  the  pleading  of  causes  :  delineate  better 
Motions  of  heavenly  bodies,  and  tell  of  the  stars  and  their 
risings. 
Thou,  oh  Roman,  remember  to  curb  with  thy  empire  the 
nations. 
These  thine  arts  shall  be,  and  of  peace  to  impose  the  con- 
ditions, 
Sparing    those    who    submit,    but    crushing    in    battle    the 
haughty." 

This  closing  boast,  also,  is  fully  justified.  While  they 
have  much  resemblance  to  the  Spartans,  the  Romans  differ 
radically  from  them  in  this  :  When  happy  chance,  and 
their  own  unflagging  discijjline,  made  them  lords  of  La- 
tinm,  of  Italy,  of  the  Mediterranean  world,  they  promptly 
developed  also  the  power  and  daring  to  hold  firmly  what 
they  had  boldly  won.  We  may  disapprove  their  methods, 
deplore  their  failure  to  create  representative  assemblies, 
ridicule  the  attempt  to  govern  the  earth  with  the  ma- 
chinery of  a  town-meeting.  The  fact  remains,  that  the 
Romans  accomplished  this  feat. 

When  the  oligarchy  of  a  few  families  decayed,  the 
dictators  and  emperors  who  succeeded  them  were  Romans 
still.  The  wealth  wrung  from  scores  of  proud  historic 
races,  now  helpless  provincials,  was  lavished  on  the  im- 
perial capital  and  its  idle  proletariat.  Even  the  flexible 
Greek  language,  with  all  the  start  given  it  by  its  unap- 
proachable masterpieces,  and  later  by  Alexander's  con- 
quests, only  maintained  itself  side  by  side  with  Latin. 
When  the  political  centre  shifted  eastward,  it  made  room 


6  INTKODUCTION 

for  a  religious  primacy  which  remains  in  large  measure  to 
the  present  hour. 

Italy  was  indeed  overrun  by  barbarians,  and  Eome  itself 
repeatedly  sacked,  in  the  fifth  century  a.d.  Yet  the  By- 
zantine empire,  which  in  some  fashion  survived  a  thousand 
years  longer,  was  itself  a  Roman  creation.  Eome,  then, 
did  at  least  build  the  bridge  by  which  the  salvage  from 
classical  antiquity  came  across  the  age  of  Gothic  conquest, 
over  the  centuries  of  confusion  and  growing  darkness, — to 
the  modern  world. 

Roman  workers  in  every  art  had  Greek  masterpieces 
constantly  before  them.  Latin  literature  hardly  begins 
until  the  decadent  Alexandrian  age  of  Hellas  was  far  ad- 
vanced. Conscious  study  of  style,  direct  imitation  of 
Hellenic  models,  even  slavish  translation,  came  first  of  all. 
The  Greek  myths  are  coolly  borrowed  entire,  and  assigned 
to  Roman  gods,  whose  attributes  suggested  a  resemblance. 
The  wanderings  of  Heracles,  Odysseus,  ^neas,  are  ex- 
tended into  Italy.  Even  important  gods,  like  Apollo, 
Pluto,  Proserpine,  and  others,  are  adopted,  name  and 
myths  alike,  from  the  Hellenic  pantheon. 

Under  all  these  conditions,  the  most  surprising  fact  is, 
that  much  of  the  peculiar  Roman  nature  does  nevertheless 
come  to  expression  in  the  classical  Latin  literature.  The 
steadfast  patriotism  of  Romans,  their  gravity,  a  certain 
Stoical  reticence  as  to  purely  subjective  emotion,  informs 
the  work  even  of  those  authors  who  are  most  clearly  in- 
spired by  the  Greek  muse. 

Latin  literature  as  a  whole  displays  talent  rather  than 
genius,  good  taste  oftener  than  creative  force.  It  bears  to 
the  Greek  somewhat  the  relation  which  the  age  of  Anne 
holds  to  the  century  of  Shakespeare  and  Spenser.  Above 
all,  the  best  authors  and  works  are,  as  a  rule,  those  most 
fully   imbued  with  the   Greek    spirit,   often,   as  in   the 


INTRODUCTION"  7 

supreme  example  of  Virgil,  those  most  frankly  imitative, 
in  plot  and  in  detail,  of  Greek  models. 

Here  we  may  discover  a  certain  analogy  to  our  own  con- 
ditions. America  was  so  dominated  by  the  language  and 
literature  of  England,  that  we  remained  timidly  provincial 
in  this  field  long  after  political  independence  was  won. 
The  sturdiest  spirits  of  our  folk,  from  Franklin  to  Lincoln, 
have  been  much  more  absorbed  in  action  than  in  literary 
art.  A  master  of  expression  may  yet  arise  among  us,  to 
be,  like  Dante  or  Goethe,  the  largest  figure  of  the  national 
life  :  but  he  certainly  has  not  yet  appeared  and  been 
recognized. 

Meantime,  it  may  be  especially  instructive  for  many  men 
and  women,  in  an  age  when  poetry  seems  forceless  and  the 
imagination  enfeebled,  to  discover,  if  we  can,  how  the 
Eoman  attained  to  taste,  to  skill,  to  adequate  self-utter- 
ance, hampered,  or  guided,  by  models  too  familiar  and  too 
mighty  to  be  ignored. 

Even  a  Cicero  or  a  Horace  is  not  ashamed  to  speak  of 
letters  as  an  avocation  for  leisure  hours,  or  as  a  pastime 
too  trivial  for  the  greatest  of  men.  Though  not  true  of 
these  two  Eomans,  it  is  indeed  true  of  their  people,  that 
their  contributions  to  the  art  of  government,  civic  organi- 
zation, law,  even  their  road-building  and  engineering  gen- 
erally, suiEce  to  lift  them  to  a  proud  pre-eminence,  quite 
apart  from  their  record  in  the  fine  arts.  Indeed,  we  must 
always  remember,  that  but  for  the  mighty  ark  which 
Caesar  and  Augustus  shaped,  the  precious  records  of  Greek 
life  might  themselves  never  have  come  down  to  us,  but 
might  have  vanished  utterly  when  the  destructive  hordes 
of  our  ancestry  swept  again  and  again  over  the  fair  lands 
of  Southern  Europe.  Our  hearty  admiration  for  the  great 
Julius,  and  the  race  whom  he  typifies,  should  color  every 
line  in  which  we  record,  as  here,  but  one  side,  perhaps  a 
lesser  phase,  of  their  great  gift  to  af tertime. 


8  INTRODUCTION 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

We  indicate  here  the  needful  equipment  of  one  shelf  in  a  very 
modest  school  or  departmental  library,  for  constant  use  with  such  a 
book  as  this.  Some  encyclopaedic  works  like  the  "  Britannica,"  the 
Smith  "  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,"  etc.,  may  surely  be  taken  for 
granted.  Among  the  larger  histories  of  early  Rome,  available  in 
English,  Ihne's  is  perhaps  even  more  helpful  to  the  young  student  than 
Mommsen's  masterpiece,  since  it  gives  the  traditional  account,  with 
some  fulness,  before  attacking  it  with  the  destructive  weapons  of  modern 
scholarship.  Of  single-volume  school  histories  the  best  packed  is  prob- 
ably Shuckburgh's,  but  it  stops  at  Actium.  The  large  page  of  Kiepert's 
Classical  Atlas  makes  it  available,  almost  like  a  wall-map,  for  a  whole 
class. 

The  teacher's  desk  needs  at  least  one  large  history  of  Latin  litera- 
ture. The  completest  references  to  the  sources,  with  frequent  brief 
quotations  also,  are  in  Teuffel,  which  is  translated  with  fair  accuracy 
by  Warr.  Much  more  readable,  in  German,  is  Ribbeck's  "  Geschichte 
der  Romischen  Dichtung,"  or,  in  French,  Fatin's  "  fitudes  sur  laPoesie 
Latine."  Mommsen's  occasional  chapters  on  literature  are  illuminat- 
ing. Sellar's  "Roman  Poets"  was  left  incomplete,  but  nearly  covers 
the  Augustan  age  as  well  as  the  Repuijlic.  It  is  judicious,  scholarly, 
somewhat  soporific.  The  large  work  of  G.  A.  Simcox  is  wilful,  but 
will  l)e  found  stimulating,  quite  copious,  and  often  doubly  useful  for 
its  references. 

Above  all,  the  classical  authors  tliemselves  should  be  available,  in 
faithful  literary  versions,  indicating  clearly  the  lines  or  sections  of  the 
Latin  or  Greek  works,  for  those  who  do  not  read  the  original  with 
«ase.  Such  a  book  as  Shuckburgh's  "•  Polybios,"  or  Clough's  "Plu- 
tarch," will  always  have  a  hundred  readers  for  one  who  can  even  con- 
sult the  original  text  on  a  doubtful  detail.  Another  Greek  work,  the 
history  of  early  Rome  by  Dionysios  the  Halicarnassian,  ought  to  be 
accessible,  for  though  writing  in  Rome,  and  in  Livy's  time,  he  is  curi- 
ously independent  of  him. 

For  Livy  we  have  the  Bohn  Library  version.  Extremely  useful, 
also,  is  the  complete  prose  translation  of  Virgil's  works  by  Conington, 
published  in  one  inexpensive  volume  by  Lee.  Other  translations  will 
be  mentioned  under  the  several  authors. 

For  those  who  read  Latin  we  earnestly  recommend  the  use  also  of 
text  editions  of  other  than  school  authors,  c.gr.,  Aulus  Gellius  and 
Macrobius,  in    the  Teubner  series.     The  sixth  volume  of  Biihrens's 


INTRODUCTION  9 

"  Poetae  Latini  Minores,"  in  the  same  series,  contains  all  the  non- 
dramatic  fragments  of  Naevius,  Ennius,  Lucilius,  and  many  others. 
A  complete  Livy  tills  but  five  Teubncr  volumes,  the  fragments  of  the 
lost  historians,  including  the  Annales  Maximi,  Cato,  etc.,  only  one. 
Special  students  will  of  course  require  Ribbeck's  "  Fragmenta  Tragi- 
corum  "  and  "  Comicorum,"  and  the  various  volumes  of  the  Iwan 
Miiller  "  Handbuch."  Peter's  Chronological  Tables  is  a  most  excel- 
lent German  work. 


f  c: 


BOOK   I 


THE  REPUBLICAN   AGE 


(TO   100  B.C.) 


CHAPTER  I 
TRACES  OF  EARLY  LATIN  POETRY  AND  PROSE 

The  Romans  nndonbtedly  received  their  alphabet  from 
the  neighboriug  Greek  city,  Cumse.  This  Campaiiian 
colony,  though  Enbamn  Chalkis  was  its  true  metropolis, 
took  its  name  from  Asiatic  Kyme,  which  regarded  itself 
as  the  special  heir  of  the  Trojan  legend  and  stock.  The 
influence  of  Cnmae  is  often  seen  in  the  early  legends,  notably 
in  the  tale  of  the  Sybilline  books,  which  were  probably  a 
collection  of  Greek  oracles.  The  strange  later  adoption  of 
a  Trojan  fugitive,  ^neas,  as  the  ancestor  of  Romulus,  may 
have  in  part  the  same  explanation. 

Writing  was  in  use  very  early.  Polybios,  a  judicious 
and  scholarly  Greek,  saw  at  Rome  in  the  second  century 
before  Christ,  and  translates,  the  archaic  text  of  a  treaty 
509  B.C.  with  Carthage,  ascribed  to  the  first  year  of 

Poiyb.,  m.,  23.  the  Republic.  Cicero,  Livy,  and  Dionysios, 
^^s.'^sl^  '  believed  they  had  seen  the  original  texts  of 
Livy,  iv.,  7,  20;  yarious    treaties,    on    ox-hides,  columns,  or 

vii     3. 

Diony'sios,      iv.,  tcmplc-wall,  dating  from  the  fifth  century 

26, 58.  before  Christ,  or  even  from  Servius  Tullius's 

and  Tarquin's  day.     As  to  the  extreme  antiquity  of  these 

memorials  they  were  probably  deceived.     Our  few  inscrip- 

ions  dating  back  to  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  are  in 

uistic  form  which   an  Augustan  scholar  could  not 

»•■''■       "^Qftdy  and  would  hardly  have  recognized  as  Latin  at  all. 

The  first  large  mass  of  writing  which  we  can  date  with 
certainty  is  the  great  code,  known  as  the  Laws  of  the 

13 


^^^^ions  di 


14  THE   REPUBLICAN   AGE 

Twelve  Tables,  composed  and  promulgated  by  Appins 
Claudius  and  the  other  decemvirs,  in  451-450  B.C.  This 
,,  ,,,  ^  code  was  long  used  as  a  first  reader  in 
schools,  and  its  influence  in  moulding  and 
fixing  the  prose  style  has  been  compared  to  that  of  Luther's 
Bible.  The  fragments  cited  by  later  authors  cannot  be 
safely  restored  to  the  original  forms,  but  should  be  care- 
fully studied  as  records  of  social  conditions.  Though  Livy 
especially  emphasizes  the  previous  visit  of  an  embassy  in 
Athens,  the  Latian  local  color  is  strong,  and  we  clearly 
have  in  the  main  a  simple  record  of  previous  usage  or 
*' common  law." 

''A  beam  built  into  a  house  or  vine-trellis  you  mustn't 
pull  out  of  its  socket  "  : — i.e.,  even  if  it  be  your  property, 
and  stolen.  Here  we  get  at  once  a  clear  sketch  of  a  rural 
and  thrifty  folk.  "  Women  shall  not  scratch  their  cheeks, 
nor  make  lamentation  at  a  funeral,"  is  truly  Eoman  Stoi- 
cism. The  provisions  for  seizing  a  debtor,  exhibiting  him 
for  redemption  on  three  market-days,  then  cutting  him 
up,  seem  cold-blooded  indeed,  despite  the  assurance  that 
the  creditors,  in  fact,  always  sold  him  whole,  and  divided 
up  only  the  proceeds.  The  protection  against  him  "  who 
sings  a  bad  song  "  might  assure  us  that  this  grim  folk  had 
already  songs,  and  some  discrimination  as  to  musical  ren- 
dition ;  but  the  allusion  is  said  to  be  merely  to  spells  or 
incantations,  sometimes  even  to  libel,  for  which  our  In- 
dians have  a  similar  idiom  :  "  A  little  bird  sang  in  my  ear." 
Perhaps  we  should  not  translate  carmen  as  *'song"  at 
all.  It  may  mean  also  ''formula,  aphorism,  any  phrase 
in  fixt  form."  The  forbidding  of  all  rites  for  a  man^ 
*' slain  by  Jove's  thunderbolt"  shows  an  abject  i'eve|^HM| 
ence  very  remote  from  the  too  familiar  treatment  of  gods^^H 
in  the  Homeric  poems.  The  traitor,  first  scourged,  then 
**hung  on  a  tree  of  evil  omen,"  reminds  ns  effectively 
which  virtue  Rome  set  highest  of  all.     A  terrible  and 


TRACES   OF    EARLY    LATIN    POETRY    AND    PROSE  15 

famous  example  had  been  set  by  Brutus,  whose  own 
sous  had  conspired  to  restore  the  Tarquins.  A  father 
,,        ,,  might   thrice    over   sell   his  child.      But   a 

Ulvy,    II.,     4-5;  J    1       ,     T      •  ,    •!   • 

Virgil,  /Eneid,  son,    once    detected    in    striking   a  parent, 
vi..  817-23.       ^^g  „  devoted  to  the  gods  of  the  family  "  : 
whether  immolated,  or  in  some  fashion  outlawed  or  en- 
slaved, may  be  debated. 

The  question  whether  there  was  any  truly  national 
poetry  antedating  the  Greek  influences  has  been  interest- 
ingly discussed  by  Macaulay.  His  own  spirited  rhymes, 
at  any  rate,  are  merely  free  paraphrases  from  Livy,  a 
genial  creative  author  well-read  in  Herodotos,  and  we  are 
quite  without  direct  evidence  of  any  such  purely  Roman 
idylls.  Cicero,  it  is  true,  says  regretfully,  "Would  that 
Cicero,  Brutus,  thosc  songs  Were  extant,  which  Cato  says,  in 
75-  his   Origines,  used  to  be  sung  in  praise  of 

tation",  i'.!''"';   iHustrious   licroes,  at  feasts,  by  the  several 
'^•'  ^-  banqueters,  many  centuries  before  his  (Cato's) 

own  time."  It  is  but  a  doubly  hearsay  statement,  for  even 
Cato's  age  had  no  such  songs  preserved  :  else  Cicero,  who 
had  the  Origiiies  before  him,  would  have  cited  them. 
Apud  Auium  Indeed  it  is  Cato  again  who  remarks,  per- 
aeiiium,  xi.,  haps  more  accurately  :  "The  poetic  art  was 
*'  ^'  nowise  in  honor.     If  anyone  was  interested 

in    it,    or   devoted    himself   to    feasts,    he  was    called   a 
'  vagabond." 

The  poet  is  actually  nameless  tn  early  Rome.  The  very 
\fovdi  poeta  is  borrowed  from  the  Greek,  and  vates,  bard, 
used  with  pride  by  Horace,  formerly  meant  soothsayer, 
probably  a  reminder  that  rhythm  was  first  attained  in 
oracular  utterances.  These  banqueters'  songs  were,  then, 
at  best,  mere  improvisations,  without  poetic  quality 
or  permanence.  The  "modest  boys"  mentioned  by 
Varro,  Cicero's  contemporary,  as  introduced  at  feasts, 
to  sing,   "with   or  without   the   pipes,   songs  in   honor 


IG  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

of  the  ancestors,"  cannot  be  assigned  to  any  particular 
century. 

Funerals  were  elaborate,  for  the  Twelve  Tables  had  to 
curtail  the  usages  of  grief.  Women  were  hired  to  sing  the 
ncetiia  or  dirge.  In  this  case  again  we  have  no  fragments, 
even,  to  quote.  We  cannot  assert  that  it  was  a  poetic 
composition. 

The  orations  at  funerals  are  sharply  criticised  by 
Cicero,  Brutus,  Cicero  and  Livy  as  most  mendacious,  indeed 
.  .'^'  ^^:..  as  the  chief  source  for  distortions  and  cor- 

Livy,  viii.,  40,  4. 

Plutarch,  Fabi-     ruptious  of  historic  fact.     Plutarch  had  read 
"*'  ^  '•  the  Encomium  of  the  great  Fabius  upon  his 

own  son.  Some  transcripts  of  these  eulogies  may  well 
have  been  preserved  in  great  houses,  but  if  so  they  mostly 
390  B.C.  perished,  like  nearly  all  other  records,  in  the 

Cf.  Livy,  vi.,  I.  great  sack  of  liome  by  the  Gauls.  In  any 
case,  they  had  no  great  literary  value. 

The  general  belief  is,  that  the  early  Latins  were  as 
nearly  strangers  to  the  Muses  as  any  people  well  can  be. 
The  meagre  fragments  offered  us,  certainly,  are  unin- 
spired indeed.  A  charm  for  footache,  to  be  sung  thrice 
nine  times,  spitting  and  touching  the  ground,   may   be 

translated : 

"Earth,  take  the  pest  to  thee! 
Health,  tarry  here  with  me  I" 

A  farmer's  maxim  is  quite  as  rude  as  our  rendering: 

"Winter  dust  and  muddy  spring 
Big  hai'vest,  child,  will  surely  bring." 

The  songs  of  the  Fratres  Arvales,  and  other  primeval 
hymns,  have  been  transmitted  in  a  form  quite  unintelli- 
gible. They  are  cniofly  appeals  to  the  rustic  gods  by  name, 
and  are  mere  priestly  incaptations,  uttered  in  spring  as  a 
blessing  on  the  cornfields.  Neither  in  them,  nor  in  the 
versified  epitaphs  found  in  the  tomb   of  the  Scipios,    is 


p 


lli,.;,,:,,l.i,;;.i:i.,l!l.';i':iiii|iii:lliilii;ili'li;ii;;:.,i.':,l::;iii:. 


i'^m 


TRACES   OF    EARLY    LATIN    POETRY   AND    PROSE  17 

tliere  anything  like  poetic  fancy.     A  single   example   of 
these  latter  will  be  convincing  : 

a8o  B.C.       Cornelius  Lucius    |I   Scipio  Barbatus, 


Son  of  a  father  Gnaivos, 
Wliose  form  unto  liis  nature 
Consul,  censor  and  a'rlile 
Taurasia,  Cisauna, 
Reduced  Lucania  wholly, 


A  man  both  wise  and  valiant. 
Was  excellently  fitted. 
He  became  among  you. 
And  Samnium  he  conquered, 
And  hostapfes  exacted. 


The  best  early  verse  quotable  is,  however,  an  epitaph, 
upon  a  woman.  It  has  a  certain  pathetic  power  due  to 
its  absolute  simplicity. 

"  Stranger,  I  say  but  little:  pause  and  read. 

This  is  a  lovely  dame's  unlovely  tomb. 

The  name  her  parents  gave  was  Claudia. 

Her  husband  she  did  love  with  all  her  heart. 

Two  sons  she  bore  him.     One  of  these  on  earth 

She  leaves,  the  other  under  earth  she  laid. 

Of  gentle  speech  she  was,  and  gracious  mien. 

She  kept  her  house,  span  wool.     All's  said.     Farewell." 

The  original  of  this  inscription  has  disappeared.  It  may 
be  only  fair  to  remark,  that,  though  archaic  in  some  of 
its  forms,  it  is  not  in  the  okl  Saturnian  verse  peculiar 
to  earliest  Latin  poetry,  but  in  Iambic  trimeter,  a  well- 
known  form  of  Greek  rhythm.  Of  the  exquisite  Hellenic 
grace  lavished,  in  all  ages,  on  the  dead,  we  have  many  ex- 
amples in  the  Greek  Anthology.  Indeed,  Professor  Momm- 
sen  argues  that  the  use  of  metrical  epitaphs  was  borrowed 
by  the  Scipios  and  others  directly  from  the  Greeks. 

Perhaps  every  people  indulges  in  rude  banter,  and  caus- 
tic wit,  in  such  times  of  merriment  as  the  harvest  home 
and  the  wedding.  Whether  the  ''  Fescennine  license " 
took  its  name  from  the  Etrurian  town  of  Fescennium,  or 
from  the  crude  emblems  of  virility  displayed,  in  Latium 


18  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

as  iu  Attica,  with  processional  songs,  at  the  rustic  festival, 
is  disputable.     Horace's  sketcli  is  famous. 

Horace      Epis-      *  ^^^^  sturdy  farmers  of  the  ancient  days, 
ties,  li.,  I.,  V88.      Content  with  little,   when   their  grain  was 
'39-46-  stored, 

Relieving  by  a  festal  time  their  frames 
And  hearts  that  toiled  in  hope  of  rest  at  last, 
With  lads  that  shared  their  task,  and  faithful  wife, 
Offered   to  Earth  a  pig,  milk  to  Silvanus, 
And  proffered  to  the  Genius  wine  and  flowers. 
Who  still  is  mindful  of  our  fleeting  life. 
Invented  so,  the  license  Feseennine 
Flung,  in  alternate  verses,  rustic  gibes." 

In  this  dialogue,  naturally  united  with  a  rude  instinc- 
tive mimicry  all  but  universal,  some  germ  of  drama  may 
he  discovered.  A  much-discussed  chapter  of  Livy  de- 
Livy  vii.  a.  scribes  the  first  impulse  to  real  acting  as 
brought  to  Rome  by  Etrurian  mountebanks 
in  364  B.C.  To  the  earliest  form  of  actual  plays  Livy 
seems  to  give  the  name  of  Satura.  Into  the  dispute  over 
this  word,  and  its  connection,  if  any,  with  the  Satyr-play, 
or  semi-comic  afterpiece  of  Greek  tragedy,  we  must  not 
enter. 

The  banter,  says  Horace,  grew  to  libellous  slander,  and 
was  curbed  by  severe  laws.  This  was  doubtless  when  the 
city  with  its  political  factions  grew  up.  So  in  Athens 
comedians  were  forbidden  to  name  living  citizens  from  the 
stage. 

That  the  "chaffing"  of  the  bridegroom  at  a  Roman 
wedding  might  far  exceed  any  modern  freedom  is  illustrated 
in  Catullus's  Epithalamium,  especially  a  passage  beginning: 

"And  now  not  long  shall  silent  be 
Saucy  Feseennine  raillery. " 


y. 


TRACES    OF    EARLY    LATIN    POETRY    AND    PROSE  19 

The  Atellan  farce,  borrowed  from  Oampaiiiii,  was  more 
distinctly  dramatic  from  the  first,  and  quite  as  vulgar. 
Stock  characters,  like  Clown  and  Pantaloon,  who  are  still 
Italian  favorites,  appear  in  countless  variations.  From  the 
Sick  Pig,  Well  Pig,  Goat,  She-ass,  the  subjects  rise  through 
Miser,  Fisherman,  Innkeeper,  to  Judgment  of  Life  and 
Death,  or  even  travesties  on  Greek  myths  like  Marsyas, 
Heracles,  Agamemnon.  The  fragments  indicate  that  we 
have  lost  an  extremely  coarse  vivid  picture  of  low  life.  It 
was  not  avowedly  realistic,  the  scene  being  always  laid  in 
Atella,  a  sort  of  typical  Fooltown,  like  the  Greek  Ab- 
dera.     Of  idealism  there  is  no  trace. 

But  we  must  leave  this  region  of  mere  surmise,  to  name 
the  first  professional  author  in  Eome,  another  famous  Appius 
Claudius,  consul  in  307  and  296  B.C.  His  statesmanship, 
and  his  engineering  works,  like  the  Appian  Way  and  Clau- 
dian  Aqueduct,  are  better  remembered  than  his  words. 
His  speech  against  an  ignoble  peace  with  King  Pyrrhus 
was  preserved  till  Cicero's  day.  From  his  book  of  Senten- 
ticB,  or  Aphorisms,  in  the  old  Saturnian  verse,  only  three 
curt  examples  survive.     One  is  still  current  : 

"  Each  for  himself  must  be 
His  fortune's  architect." 

Appius  had  scholarly  tastes  also.  He  it  was  who  dropped 
Z  from  the  seventh  place  to  the  end  of  the  alphabet,  thus 
making  room  for  the  distinction  of  G  from  C.  But  he 
seems,  like  his  people,  too  busy  with  "graver  matters"  to 
be  a  producer  of  mere  literature. 

At  any  rate,  the  native  Latin  growth,  weak  or  sturdy, 
was  overwhelmed  in  the  third  century  before  Christ  by  the 
influence  of  Hellenism.  From  that  time  on  we  have  for 
long  centuries  little  or  no  trace  of  truly  native  poetry. 

The  Saturnian  metre  was  the  favorite  before  Greek  in- 


20  THE    REPUBLICAN"    AGE 

fluence  brought  in  the  classic  rhythms.  Its  basis  is  a  verse 
of  three  heavy  or  stressed  syllables.  Two  such  verses  had 
apparently  united  long  before  to  form  the  Greek  hexameter. 
So  too  in  the  "  Niebelungenlied  "  we  have  the  measure, 

"Forfis  in  ancient  legends  ||  are  m4ny  m4rvels  t61d." 

Our  nursery  rhyme, 

"  The  qu^en  was  in  the  pdrlor  efiting  br^ad  and  h6ney, " 

represents  the  same  widely  used  rhythm.  There  is,  how- 
ever, much  variation  in  the  actual  structure  of  the  Satur- 
nian  verse.  The  quantitative  element  seems  less  prominent 
than  in  the  poetry  written  later  under  Greek  influences. 
To  the  latter  we  must  presently  turn. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Here  as  everywhere  tlie  author  is  constantly  indebted  to  Schanz, 
*'  Geschichte  der  Romischen  Litteratur  "  (in  Miiller's  "  Handbuch  der 
Klassischen  Alterthumswissenschaft "),  a  work  which  should  by  all 
means  be  recast  in  English.  The  classical  scholar  will,  of  course, 
turn  to  Wordsworth's  or  Allen's  collection  of  fragments  from  the 
archaic  Latin.  Mommsen's  history  deals  also,  most  learnedly,  with 
literary  problems.  For  the  Saturuian  metre  there  is  an  exhaustive 
essay  by  Professor  Lindsay  in  the  American  Journal  of  Philology,  Vol. 
XIV.,  where  all  the  extant  fragments  are  cited.  But  this  whole  field 
is  given  over  to  learned  investigation  and  polemic  discussion.  If  there 
was  any  real  indigenous  literature  in  Latium  we  shall  never  see  it. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   TRANSITION  TO   HELLENISM 

The  war  with  Tareutum  and  King  Pyrrhus  must  have 

brought  many  captive  Greeks  to  Rome,  and  the  influence 

of  Pyrrhus's  own  superior  culture  and  grace 

on  the   ruder  Latin  nature  is  indicated  in 

many  tales  of  the  time.      But  much  more  was  the   first 

great  war  with  Carthage  decisive  of  the  future.     To  cope 

with  her  African  foe    Rome  had  to  build  a 

series  of  great  fleets.     Sicily,  long  the  most 

luxurious  and  splendid  of  Hellenic  lands,  was  the  centre 

of  the  strife,  and  the  chief  prize  of  the  victors.     From  this 

time  forward  commercial  relations,  at  least,   with   Greek 

cities  must  have  been  manifold  and  constant.     The  Latin 

peasant  could  never  again  return  to  his  simple  rustic  life. 

The  Roman  nature  still  resisted  these  influences,  indeed, 

for  a  time.     Perhaps  the  uninspired  couplet  of  Licinius, 

centuries  later,  is  accurate  enough. 

Apud     Aulum  "In  the. second  Punic  war  to  Romulus'  wild 

Gelllum,  jtvii.,  warlike  race, 

*'•  '♦5*  With  her  winged  feet  the  Muse  drew  nigh, 

and  found  a  resting-place. ' ' 

There  is  a  curious  contrast,  and  a  grotesque  parallelism, 
in  the  beginnings  of  the  two  classic  literatures  :  for  Latin 
letters  also  offer  us,  first  of  all,  an  Homeric  epic. 

AXDRONICUS. 

Livius  Androuicns  came  to  Rome  as  a  prisoner  of 
war,  and   therefore  as  a  slave,  from    Grecian  Tareutum, 

31 


22  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

probably  in  273  }^.c.,  being  then  perhaps  a  child  of 
six  or  so.  After  his  emancipation  he  gained  a  living  by 
teaching  Greek  and  Latin  :  though  nowise  learned  in 
either.  His  translation  of  the  Odyssey  was  made  to  supply 
tlie  grievous  lack  of  Latin  texts.  It  was  in  rough  Satur- 
nians,  and  even  the  few  fragments  preserved  betray  at 
times  a  surprising  ignorance  of  Homer's  meaning.  Yet 
this  version  appears  to  have  been  a  school  text-book  still  in 
Horace  Epist.,  Horacc's  boyliood.  Even  AuhisGellius  found 
«.,  1, 69.  j^jj  q](J  copy  in  the  library,  and  quotes  for  us 

the  first  line  : 

"  Virum  miki,  Camena,  ||  insece  versutum.** 

The  use  of  the  purely  Italian  Camena,  for  Muse,  is  char- 
acteristic. We  find  also  Saturn,  Neptune,  Mercury,  etc., 
and  this  masquerade  of  Greek  gods  under  Eoman  names 
has  continued,  especially  among  Homeric  translators,  even 
down  to  Lord  Derby  and  William  Cullen  Bryant.  The 
two  score  lines  we  have  from  Andronicus's  Avork  are  mostly 
cited  by  the  Latin  grammarians.  Thus  to  prove  that  puer, 
boy,  was  once  of  common  gender,  an  appeal  to  Hera  (Juno) 
as  "  Sanda  puer  Saturni"  (holy  child  of  Saturn)  is  quoted. 

Why  did  Andronicus  translate  the  Odyssey,  not  the 
Iliad  ?  Probably  because  Odysseus's  wanderings  seemed 
to  include  Sicily,  and  even  Italy.  The  neighboring  cities 
of  Tusciilum  and  Prreneste  claimed  the  hero's  son  by 
Circe,  Telcgonos,  as  their  founder.  The  Latin  version 
may  have  been  as  bold  in  translating  the  geographical 
allusions  of  Homer  as  it  certainly  was  in  dealing  with  his 
gods.  The  claim  of  the  Romans  to  Trojan  origin  seems  to 
have  arisen  a  little  later. 

In  240  r..r.  Andronicus  produced  a  tragedy  and  a 
comedy.  Botli  were  translations  or  adaptations.  The 
attempt  was  apparently  made  then,  for  the  first  time,  to 
imitate  the  quantitative  rhythms  of  the  Greek  originals. 


\ 


THE   TRANSITION   TO    HELLENISM  23 

The  decided  success  of  the  performance  made  the  fash- 
ion a  permanent  one   for   centuries.     The    meagre   frag- 
ments   of    Andronicus's     plays    indicate    a 

LIvy   vll.    3*  X      ^ 

decided  advance  over  the  Odyssey  version. 
The  subjects  for  tragedy  are  taken  chiefly  from  the  Trojan 
cycle.  His  comedies  were  doubtless  borrowed  from  the 
school  of  Meuander  and  Philemon,  well  known  to  us 
through  Plautus  and  Terence,  but  hardly  anything  from 
them  survives.  The  boastful  soldier,  lineal  ancestor  of 
Falstaff  and  Dugald  Dalgetty,  appeared  first  on  the  Roman 
stage  in  Andronicus's  play  "  Grladiolus  "  (The  Dagger), 

So  far  as  the  Hellenistic  tragedy  in  Rome  is  concerned, 
we  may  best  say  a  general  word  on  the  subject  at  once. 
The  five  leading  names  are  Andronicus,  N^evius,  Ennius, 
Pacuvius,  Attius.  These  five  lives  successively  overlap 
each  other,  and  the  youthful  Cicero  often  conversed  with 
Attius  in  his  old  age.  With  the  latter  the  fashion  decayed, 
though  various  later  writers  still  composed  tragedies,  more 
or  less  original,  rather  as  rhetorical  exercises  than  for  act- 
ual production  in  the  theatre.  The  rise  of  gladiatorial 
sports,  and  the  horrors  of  the  civil  wars,  hastened  the  end. 

No  entire  tragedy,  no  considerable  fragments  of  any, 
survive  from  the  republican  age.  In  no  case  is  it  pos- 
sible to  restore  with  certainty  the  entire  plot  of  a  play. 
The  attempt  has  indeed  been  made,  with  great  learn- 
ing and  ingenuity,  but  with  most  uncertain  results.  The 
chief  essay  of  this  kind  is  by  Ribbeck,  in  his  book  "The 
Roman  Tragedy."  He  combines  boldly,  with  our  Latin 
remnants,  fragments  from  lost  Greek  plays  on  the  same 
subjects,  the  brief  "fables"  of  a  late  writer  Hyginus, 
which  are  thought  often  to  show  a  dramatic  origin,  and 
various  other  hints.  Ribbeck  has  certainly  done  one 
real  service  :  he  has  made  the  perusal  of  these  tantalizing 
fragments  far  more  interesting,  and  even  profitable. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  manifold  variations  in  the  retell- 


24  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

ing  of  the  old  myths  is  sharpened.  But  we  shall  probably 
never  read  entire  one  of  these  Graeco-Roman  tragedies  of 
republican  times.  We  possess  only  the  group  of  turgid 
declamatory  dramas  bearing,  perhaps  rightly,  the  name  of 
Seneca.     But  we  stray  from  Andronicus. 

Much  more  comes  to  our  ears,  in  credible  or  incredible 
E.g.,  Livy,  vii.,   fomi,  as  to  the  career  of  this  Greek  freed- 

*•  man  in  Rome.     On  one  or  two  occasions  his 

processional  hymns  were  highly  honored,  and  performed 
Livy.  xxvu..  37.   in  public  to  avert  grave  dangers  from  the 

B.C.  307.  state.  Cicero  chronicles  a  remarkable  revival 
accorded  to  two  of  his  dramas,  the  "  Clytaemnestra  "  and  the 
Cicero,  Ad  Fam.,  '' Trojan  Horsc,"  with  immense  outlay  and 

vii.,i.  B.C.55.  hundreds  of  performers,  to  inaugurate  Pom- 
pey's  fine  stone  theatre.  But  he  is,  after  all,  a  lost  author, 
whose  importance  came  to  him,  perhaps,  by  good  luck,  as 
the  shrewd  and  thrifty  leader  of  a  great  transitional  move- 
ment. Patronized  by  the  great,  catering  to  the  amuse- 
ments of  high  and  low  alike,  he  ill  deserves  the  honored 
names  of  Roman  and  poet. 

N^vius. 

Our  next  author,  though  possibly  not  Roman  by  birth, 
is  no  hungry  Greekling :  a  gallant  soldier,  not  a  school- 
master and  actor :  not  a  client,  but  a  bold  critic,  of  the 
nobility. 

As  a  playwright,  he  at  least  combined  several  Greek  plots 
in  one,  and  was  the  first  to  write  serious  plays  also  on 
Roman  subjects,  which  must  have  been  his  own.  Of  these 
fabulcB  prcBtextatce,  or  dramas  in  the  toga,  one  celebrated 
a  victory  of  Marcellus  over  the  Gauls  in  223  B.C.,  so  was  as 
boldly  up-to-date  as  Aischylos's  "  Persians,''  which  de- 
scribed the  fight  at  Salamis  to  an  audience  most  of  whom 
had  beheld  the  struggle  in  the  strait.     Probably  Naevius, 


THE  TRANSITION   TO   HELLENISM  25 

like  Aischylos,  merely  introduced  a  messenger  who  gave  an 
account  of  the  battle.     Indeed,  the  one  surviving  line  is 

"  With  life  unburied,  home  with  joy  returned."    .     .     . 

A  battle-scene  like  those  in  Shakespeare's  "Henry  V." 
would  hardly  have  been  seriously  attempted  by  the  classic 
dramatist. 

A  bolder  venture  still  was  the  production  of  comedies 
with  slashing  allusions  to  political  questions  of  the  hour. 
Such  a  reference  was  the  famous  line  attacking  a  leading 
family : 

"  Metelli  for  her  consuls  are  the  doom  of  Rome." 

But  our  sturdy  poet  could  not  play  the  part  of  political 
satirist,  like  an  Athenian  Aristophanes,  with  impunity. 
Despite  such  ringing  words  as 

"  With  the  speech  of  liberty,  at  Liber's  festival  we'll  speak," 

a  consul  Metellus  threw  Naevius  into  prison.     Here  he  had 
6  B  c  (?)         ^^®  quiet  sympathy  of  Plautus,  who  makes 
one  of  his  Greek  characters  say  : 


Miles  QlorioBus, 
V8S.  212-13. 


*•  A  barbarous  poet,  so  they  tell  me,  props  his 
chin  upon  his  hand, 
While  a   pair  of  guardsmen  still    at   every 
hour  before  him  stand." 


Here   Naevius   languished,  long  enough  to  compose  two 

dramas.     Finally  released  by  intercession  of  the  tribunes 

of  the  plebs,  he  perhaps  had  a  relapse  into 

insolence.     When  Scipio  had  just  conquered 

Hannibal,  the  ill-timed  gibe  was  uttered  : 

"He  whose  deeds  are  now  so  famous,  to  all 
Aullus  Qellius,  nations  heralded, 

vii.,  8,  5.  gy  jjjg  father  from  his  sweetheart's  coatless 

onee  was  homeward  led  !  " 

At  any  rate,    Nsvius   died    the   next   year   in    exile,  at 
201  B.C.  Utica. 


26  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

The  work   of  this  manly  poet  which  we  would  most 

eagerly  recover  is  an  epic,  or  perhaps  rather  a  rhythmical 

chronicle,  of  the  first  Punic  war.     The  first  of  the  seven 

books  dealt  with  earlier  history.     Trojan  yEneas's  arrival 

in  Italy  was  mentioned.     It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this 

.„,  .  ,  whole  legend  of  ^neas's  wanderings  is  post- 

vide  infra,  p.  i68.  •  t^-  U       ■  +•  f  4-1      i    ^ 

Homeric.     It  was  the  invention  oi  the  later 

Greek  poets  that  he  wandered  to  Hesperia.  Many  dis- 
cordant forms  of  the  myth  are  alluded  to  by  Dionysios  the 
historian  and  others.  The  tale  of  Romulus  was  already 
fixed  in  popular  belief.  Hence  in  early  accounts,  includ- 
ing the  poems  of  both  Naevius  and  Ennius,  Romulus  is 
^neas's  son,  or  the  son  of  his  daughter.  Cato  and  others 
discovered  the  gap  in  the  chronology,  of  over  four  cen- 
Tro  '8      fall       turies,  and  a  later  age  invented,  or  borrowed, 

1184  B.C.  to  fill  it  up,  the  long  line  of  royal  Albans  be- 

Rome  founded,      tweeii  the  two  founders.     Even  the  love  af- 

^^^    '  '  fairs  of  ^neas  and  Dido  are  clearly  alluded 

to  in  Naevius's  epic  fragments.  Here  we  touch  a  topic  to 
which  we  shall  often  return  :  the  constant  indebtedness  of 
Virgil  to  each  and  all  of  his  forerunners. 

The  poetic  value  of  this  martial  chronicle  was  perhaps 
not  great.  Certainly  the  later  age,  while  honoring  its 
patriotic  spirit,  found  it  crude.  The  Saturnian  often 
lends  itself  to  curt  and  picturesque  statement. 

"The  Roman  crossed  to  Malta:  ||  from  shore  to  shore  the  island 
He   harried,   burned  and    ravaged,  {|  and  finished   up    the 
matter. " 

The  very  choice  of  the  old  metre  does  honor  to  Nsevius's 
heart,  probably  also  to  his  judgment.  Even  the  half-en- 
vious Horace  confesses  the  great  popularity  of  the  old 
poet  stilk  Of  course  his  career  proves  that  he  was  no  op- 
ponent of  Hellenism.  Indeed  the  very  first  verse  invokes 
the  Muses : 


THE   TRANSITION    TO    IfRLLENISM  27 

♦*  Ye  nine  harmonious  sisters,  of  Jove  who  are  the  daugh- 
ters.    .     .     ." 

The  release  of  Naevins  by  the  tribunes  indicates  his  full 

Roman  citizenship.     Gellius,  quoting  his  epi- 
Qelllus,  1;  24, 2.  .        -,     ,,r^  •       i  \  l-  » 

taph,  criticises  its  "  Campanian  hauglitiness. 
On  this  slender  hint  his  Latiaii  birth  has  been  denied. 
That  Ngevius  himself  speaks  in  the  epigram  is,  of  course, 
no  proof  of  its  authorship.  It  may  quite  as  well  be  from 
the  pen  of  Varro,  who  made  a  collection  of  portraits  and 
added  metrical  elogia.  Yet  the  spirit  is  no  doubt  Naevian. 
It  is  perhaps  the  last  time  we  shall  hear  the  old  rhythm. 

'*  If  it  were  fit  immortals  ||  for  mortal  men  should  sorrow, 
Then  well  may  the  Camenje  ||  mourn  Ntevius  the  poet. 
So  since  he  has  been  added  ||  unto  the  wealth  of  Orcus, 
At  Rome  men  have  forgotten  |1  to  speak  the  Latin  language." 

If  we  have  given  this  early  lost  poet  more  space  than  his 
scant  remaining  verses  justify,  it  is  but  due  to  the  fearless 
outspoken  man,  citizen,  soldier,  and  artist.  There  are  too 
few  like  him  in  later  days.  Rarely  indeed  does  the  Roman 
singer  scorn  patronage,  defy  the  mighty,  and  assert  the 
freedom  or  dignity  of  his  guild. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

We  are  still  in  the  region  where  only  special  students  can  move 
freely,  and  they  only  to  radical  disagreements.  For  the  fragments  see 
Bahrens's  "  Poetae  Minores,"  Vol.  VI.,  and  Ribbeck's  twin  volumes  of 
tragic  and  comic  remnants.  Ribbeck's  volume  on  "  Romische  Tragodie" 
is  for  scholars,  his  "  Romische  Dichtung,"  in  three  parts,  is  intended 
for  any  general  reader  who  is  master  of  German.  Mommsen  is  ex- 
tremely good  on  this  period. 


CHAPTER   III 

AGE   OF   THE   SCIPIOS,    AND   CATO 
(202-133  B.C.) 

The  long  duel  with  Carthage,  or  rather  with  the  nnrivalled 
military  genius  of  Hannibal,  brought  Rome 

Second  Punic  ,  ,      i      ^  i^-  Ttri     xi  i. 

War,   218-        to  the  verge   of   destruction.     Whether   he 
202  B.C.  made  an  error  of  strategy  after  Cannae,  or 

not,  is  a  hackneyed  subject.  But  it  seems  certain  that, 
with  decent  support  from  his  own  nation,  whether  he  as- 
sailed Rome  directly  or  no,  he  could  have  made  the  control 
of  Italy  permanent.  This  is  but  saying  that  the  Romans 
better  deserved  to  win,  because  they  supported  the  inferior 
skill  of  Fabius,  Marcellus,  Africanus,  with  harmonious  un- 
tiring efforts  and  sacrifices.  By  securing  the  results  of 
victory,  Rome  made  all  Italy  safe  from  serious  invasion  for 
long  centuries  to  come.  These  next  seventy  years  are  in 
many  ways  the  best  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  race. 

The  great  leaders,  above  all  the  older  Africanus  and  his 
adoptive  grandson  vEmilianus,  enjoyed,  and  deserved,  the 
full  respect  of  their  people.  Foreign  conquest  kept  the 
youth  honorably  employed,  while  the  ever-increasing  reve- 
nues from  new  provinces  prevented  suffering  at  home. 
Culture,  also,  came  swiftly  from  without,  but  never  fully 
Hellenized  the  rude  persistent  stock  of  Latin  peasantry. 

There  were,  indeed,  causes  for  the  gravest  anxiety.  Po- 
litical corruption  had  already  begun.  The  governors  of 
the  provinces  often  conspired  with  the  contractors  and  tax- 
gatherers  to  rob  their  helpless  subjects.  In  Italy  the  small 
farmers  were  quickly  ruined  by  the  destructive  competition 

38 


AGE   OF  THE   SCIPIOS,    AND   CATO  29 

of  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Africa,  the  granaries  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean world.  From  all  parts  of  Italy  they  streamed  to 
swell  the  city  populace,  while  the  tale  of  genuine  Roman 
citizens  was  decimated  by  constant  war. 

The  Scipios  appear  in  this  time  as  the  most  refined  and 
progressive  among  the  nobles,  the  friends  and  patrons  of 
the  new  learning  and  of  Hellenic  taste,  the  centre  of  that 
cosmopolitan  hospitality  which  accepted  Ennius  as  the  tru- 
est voice  of  his  adopted  city,  made  of  the  African  slave-boy 
Terence  a  scholarly  poet,  and  sent  Polybios  back  to  preach 
to  the  Greeks  not  sullen  submission  but  glad  acceptance  of 
rulers  worthy  to  be  masters  of  the  world. 

Quite  at  the  other  extreme  stands  a  stubborn  personal 
Cato  the  Censor,  enemy  of  the  great  Af  ricauus,  Cato  the  Cen- 
334-149,  B.C.  QQY,  lauder  of  the  better  times  forever  past, 
detesting  and  resisting  all  things  Hellenic  or  foreign  with 
Livy,  xxxviii..  ^^16  ferocity  of  instinctive  self-preservation. 
54.  ••  He  was  quite   right,    that  whatever   might 

await  Imperial  Rome,  the  old  type  of  character,  the  old 
simple  ways  of  living,  could  return  no  more. 

By  a  capricious  freak  of  fortune,  the  one  work  of  Cato 
handed  down  to  us  is  his  "  De  Re  Rustica,"  a  hopeless  at- 
tempt to  call  to  his  people's  attention  the  old  beloved  rustic 
life  :  and  even  this  has  been  so  modernized  in  form  and 
expression  that  he  would  no  doubt  scornfully  disown  it. 
Yet  it  is  lifted  into  prominence  as  the  oldest  Latin  prose- 
work  extant.  Even  in  the  revision  the  style  reveals  the 
man. 

Old  horses,  or  old  slaves,  are  better  got  rid  of  by  sale,  or 
turned  out  to  perish.  Yet  the  "family,''  of  perhaps  a 
hundred,  should  "  not  suffer,  be  cold,  nor  hungry.  The 
bailiff  is  to  keep  it  busy,  thus  better  restraining  it  from  mis- 
chief and  thieving.  .  .  .  He  mustn't  think  he  knows 
more  than  the  master.     .     .     .     Seed-corn,  tools,  barley, 


30  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

wine,  oil,  he  must  lend  to  no  one.  .  .  .  He  should  be 
the  first  to  get  up,  and  the  last  to  go  to  bed."  At  the 
winter  fireside  of  Whittier's  boyhood,  for  instance,  this 
book  would  have  proved  far  more  practical  than  llesiod, 
or  the  Virgilian  Georgics. 

Of  humor,  indeed,  there  is  in  Cato  only  the  grim  Scotch 
sort,  as  heard  in  his  "  Praise  large  farms,  and  take  a  small 
one."  So  too  his  chief  contribution  to  rhetoric  is  "Grip 
the  subject :  words  will  follow.'''  Sometimes  he  is  near 
akin  to  Poor  Richard  :  "  What  you  do  not  need  is  dear  at  a 
Cicero,  De  Offi-     penny."     Cato  is  especially  mentioned  as  an 

ells,  I.,  39. 104-  early  collector  of  witty  apophthegmata :  but 
Roman  Avit  is  rarely  convulsing. 

Cato's  services  to  literature  were  important,  and  the  loss 
of  his  other  works  is  still  deplored.  He  was  the  first  Roman 
orator  to  collect  his  own  speeches.  One  hundred  and  fifty 
Cicero,  crutus,     of  them  Came  down  at  least  to  Cicero,  who 

'7.65-  now  compels  us  to  judge  of  Roman  oratory 

from  his  own  copious  rlietoric  alone.     Livy  praises  them 

most  warmly.     As  a  result  of  any  real  Aristo- 

Livv  xxxix     ^o 

telian  inquiry  into  the  early  constitutions  and 
social  conditions  of  the  Latin  and  other  Italian  cities,  Cato^s 
"  Origines  "  might  disappoint  us.  Yet  the  record  of  an  older 
and  less  adorned  tradition  than  Livy's,  the  fearless  criticism 
of  recent  events  and  living  statesmen,  even  the  ideal  picture 
Gesch.  Rom.  ^f  the  golden  age  past,  would  have  great 
Litt.,  p.  105.  value  :  Professor  Schanz,  echoing  Niebuhr, 
says,  a  greater  value  than  any  other  lost  work  of  antiquity. 
That  "  Cato  learned  Greek  at  eighty  "  is  a  very  mislead- 
ing commonplace.  He  is  avowedly  recording  for  his  son 
Marcus  what  he  had  learned  in  youth  at  Athens,  when  he 
asserts  that  the  Greeks  are  "  A  most  worthless  and  un- 
teachable  race.  Believe  that  this  is  uttered  by  a  prophet: 
whenever  that  folk  imparts  its  literature,  it  will  corruiat 
everything." 


AGE   OF   THE   SCIPIOS,    AND    CATO  31 

We  cannot  but  return  such  scorn  for  alien  folk  with  ii 
hearty  admiration  and  liking  for  the  man  who  speaks  thus. 
Especially  Cato  grown  old,  ugly,  and  misanthropic, 

"Porcius,  fiery-haired,  gray-eyed,  and  snarling  at  all  men," 

has  as  real  a  fascination  as  Samuel  Johnson,  or  Socrates 
himself.  Like  Jolm  C.  Calhoun,  or  some  gallant  French 
nobleman  of  the  old  regime,  he  steadily  recedes  into  a  past 
remembered  by  ever  fewer  men,  but  always  a  picturesque 
and  unflinching  leader  of  a  lost  cause. 

A  human  heart  beat  in  that  rugged  breast.  In  167  B.C. 
a  thousand  leading  Greeks  were  brought  to  Eome  as  host- 
ages. Seventeen  years  later  there  was  a  tedious  debate  in 
the  senate  whether  three  hundred  harmless  forgotten  sur- 
vivors should  be  permitted  to  return.  Cato  gruffly  cut  it 
short:  "  As  though  we  had  nothing  else  to  do,  here  we  sit 
discussing  whether  a  few  old  Greeks  be  buried  here  or  in 
Achaia."  Even  his  Homer  he  had  read  to  better  purpose 
than  he  confessed.  Wlien  urged  to  move  also,  in  the  sen- 
ate, for  a  restoration  of  their  former  civic  honors,  he  re- 
marked with  his  sour  smile:  ''Polybios  would  venture 
back  into  the  Cyclops'  cave,  because  he  forgot  his  belt  and 
cap." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Any  of  the  histories  will  supplement  the  political  outlines  here  sug- 
gested. For  Cato  the  English  reader  should  not  forget  the  life  in  Plu- 
tarch. The  genial  old  man  in  Cicero's  "  De  Senectute  "  bears  only  the 
name  of  Cato  :  but  in  Cicero's  other  works  there  are  many  excellent  re- 
marks on  the  elder  author.  Nepos's  brief  sketch  includes  our  best  anal- 
ysis of  the  "  Origines."  Livy  has  a  careful  judgment.  (Book  XXXIX., 
40.)  Aulus  Gellius  has  preserved  many  details  as  to  Cato,  and  the  cita- 
tions by  Servius  in  his  great  Virgilian  commentary  are  still  more  im- 
portant. The  rather  copious  remains  of  the  "  Origines  "  are  found  in 
Peter's  "  Historicorum  Fragmenta,"  pp.  40-67.  Both  these  and  his 
other  fragments  are  well  edited  by  Keil,  and  the  "  De  Re  Rustica" 
by  Jordan,  in  one  volume  with  Varro's  similar  work. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ENNIUS 

This  stardy  son  of  Rudiaj,  a  remote  Calabrian  village, 
used  to  declare  that  he  had  tliree  hearts,  which  found  ut- 
terance in  the  forgotten  Oscan  dialect  of  his 
clan,  in  Greek,  the  language  of  the  street, 
market,  and  theatre  throughout  Magna  Graecia,  and  in  the 
Latin  speech  of  his  adoptive  fellow-citizens.  Enlisted  in 
the  Roman  army,  he  had  fought  his  way  early,  no  doubt 
with  many  scars,  to  the  rank  of  centurion,  or  head  of  his 
company :  a  very  different  career  from  that  of  a  young 
Roman  gentleman,  learning  the  art  of  war  as  attache  on  the 
proconsul's  staff,  and  later  given  command  of  a  legion.  We 
may  compare  him  perhaps  to  the  color-sergeant  of  a  British 
regiment  under  the  older  regime,  when  only  a  gentleman 
could  buy  his  position  in  the  social  club  of  higher  officers. 

When  Cato,  in  his  thirtieth  year,  returning  from  Sar- 
dinia, brought  in  his  train  this  young  veteran  of  thirty-five, 
he  had  no  suspicion  what  a  trick  fate  was  playing  him.  Be- 
ginning like  Andronicus  as  a  teacher  of  both  languages, 
Ennius  soon  became  the  personal  friend  of  the  two  great 
Scipios,  Africanus  and  Nasica.  His  famous  little  jest  at 
the  latter's  expense  is,  for  Rome,  a  remarkably  good  one. 
Turned  away  from  his  friend's  door,  he  next  day — perhaps 
busy  with  Poesia  and  Podagra,  his  two  most 

Cicero,  De  Ora-  .  ,  ,  ^c^    •    •        ^  -i      -t 

tore,  li.,  376.     imperious    guests — when     Scipio    knocked, 

shouted  down  stairs  that  he  too  was  ''  not 

at  home."     To  Scipio's  indignant  protest  he  retorted  :  "  I 

believed  your  maid  :  do  you  venture  to  doubt  even  my  own 


voice  ?  " 


32 


.>•,  ft-^^' 


'■  -W. 


IVWFER,RE^L[CEB[T^P.CAEL[V5^'T  F 


»^'. 


MONUMENT   OF    A    ROMAN    YICE-CENTUKION. 

From  RaunuMster. 


ENNIUS  33 

Though  we  get  other  glimpses  of  a  very  simple  menage, 
he  seems  to  have  had  no  quarrel  with  splendor,  especially, 
like  Horace,  when  the  guest  of  the  great.  Indeed,  his  claim, 
"  Only  when  housed  by  the  gout  do  I  versify,"  seems  as  dis- 
dainful of  the  Muse  as  any  great  Roman  noble  could  have 
been.  As  Franklin  also  confessed,  gout,  of  which  Ennius 
died  at  last,  is  itself  a  luxury,  unknown  to  the  abstemious. 
Horace  says  boldly, 

"E'en  in  the  morning  the  Muses  have  mostly 
Epistles,  i.,  19,  reeked  of  the  wine-cup. 

Homer  confesses  a  fondness  for  wine  by  chant- 
ing its  praises. 
Father  Ennius,  too,  leaped  forward  to  sing  of  the  battle 
Never  unless  well  drunk  !  " 

This  much  at  least  is  true,  that  Ennius,  though  accepting 

with  delight  full   Eoman  citizenship,    meddled   not,   like 

N^vins,  in  democratic  or  other  politics,  and  without  loss 

of  self-respect,  was  an  ever- welcome  guest  of  the  great.  The 

accomplishments,  and  the  tact,  needed  in  such  a  station, 

he  has  described  perfectly  in  his   *'Annales."   We  needed 

not  the  assurance  of  the  first  among  Roman 

apud  Geiiium     scholars,   that  Ennius  was  really  portraying 

xii.,  4,  s.  himself,  in  his  poem,  when  a  Roman  general 

of  an  earlier  day 

"  Called  for  a  man  with  whom  he  often  and  gladly 
Table  shared,  and  talk,  and  all  his  burden  of  duties. 
When  with  debate  all  day  on  important  affairs  he  was  wearied, 
Whether  perchance  in  the  forum  wide,  or  the  reverend  senate  : 
One  with  whom  he  could  frankly  speak  of  his  serious  matters, 
Trifles  also,  and  jests;  could  pour  out  freely  together 
Pleasant  or  bitterer  words,   and  know  they  were  uttered  in 

safety. 
Many  the  joys  and  griefs  he  had  shared,  whether  public  or 

secret! 
This  was  a  man  in  whom  no  impulse  prompted  to  evil. 
Whether  of  folly  or  malice.     A  scholarly  man  and  a  loyal, 


34  THE    REPUBLICAN"    AGE 

Graceful,  ready  in  speech,  with  his  own  contented  and  happy; 

Tactful,  speaking  in  season,  yet  courteous,  never  loquacious. 

Vast  was  the  buried  and  antique  lore  that  was  his,  for  the  fore- 
time 

Made  him  master  of  earlier  customs  as  well  as  of  newer. 

.  .  .  Wisely  he  knew  both  when  he  should  talk  and  when 
to  be  silent." 

This  last  repeated  tench  perhaps  hints  the  sore  spot  in  a 
dependent's  life  :  the  duty  of  silence. 

When  Fulvius  invited  Ennius  along  on  a  Greek  cam- 
paign,  it   was  not  as  a   centurion.     Cato,    already  disen- 
chanted, sharply  reproved  the  taking  of  poets 
into  the  camp,  and  Cicero  hints  at  some  re- 
lation of  eulogist  and  patron,  saying  Fulvius  did  not  hesi- 
tate "  To  dedicate  Mars'  booty  to  the  Muses." 

At  any  rate,  this  Calabrian  villager  brought  to  the  Ro- 
mans a  full  acceptance  of  Greek  forms  and  taste.  His  epic 
is  not,  like  Andronicus's  and  Naevius's,  in  the  accentual 
Saturnians,  but  in  quantitative  hexameters,  perhaps  as 
Homeric  as  the  somewhat  stiff  polysyllabic  speech  of 
Eome  could  yield  to  him  who  first  moulded  it  in  the 
favorite  Grecian  rhythm. 

The  subject,  more  ambitious  than  Ncevius's,  is  frankly 
assumed  to  be  the  whole  story  of  Rome.    He 

Servluson  •' 

Aen.,1.,373,      too   begins   with   Troy  and  JEneas,  who,  us 
Servius  twice  assures  us,  is  still  made  Konm- 
lus's  grandsire.     Yet  Ennius  invokes  in  the  first  verse  no 
Italian  Camenas,  but 

"  Muses  who  underneath  your  feet  tread  mighty  Olympus." 

His  list  of  the  twelve  great  gods  is  interesting  in  that  he 
accepts  this  Hesiodic  number,  and  is  compelled  to  include 
one  purely  Hellenic  name. 

*•  Juno  Vesta  Minerva  Ceres  Diana  Venus  Mars 
Mercurius  Jovis  Neptunus  Volcanus  Apollo." 


ENNIUS  35 

The  second  line  exemplifies  also  the  chief  difference  be- 
tween the  earlier  and  the  Virgiliau  hexameter.  Final  s 
after  a  short  vowel,  as  in  Jovis,  can  be  suppressed  at  will. 
The  statement  early  in  the  poem  that  Homer's  soul  was 
reincarnated  in  Ennius  need  not  imply  any  serious  belief 
in  metempsychosis.  Even  as  an  assertion  of  his  own  Ho- 
meric genius  it  is  not  insufferable  conceit. 

AVhile  thus  frankly  Hellenic  in  its  taste,  the  poem  was 
the  most  adequate  utterance  ever  attained  of  the  character- 
istic Roman  spirit.  We  have  about  six  hundred  verses 
altogether,  perhaps  a  twentieth  of  the  whole.  Some  pas- 
sages, such  as  the  beautiful  account  of  Rhea  Silvia's  pro- 
phetic dream,  extend  to  nearly  a  score  of  connected  hexam- 
eters. Even  brief  fragments  have  often  a  certain  com- 
pleteness, as  the  characterization  of  Fabius,  which  we  are 
fain  to  apply  to  Washington  or  Abraham  Lincoln  : 

"Simply  by  biding  his  time,  one  man  has  rescued  a  nation. 
Not  for  the  praises  of  men  did  he  care,  but  alone  for  our 

safety. 
Therefore  greater  and  greater  his  fame  shall  wax  in  the 

future." 

A  larger  international  sympathy  breathes  in  Pyrrhus's 
words  to  the  Romans  : 

"  Grold  for  myself  I  crave  not.  Ye  need  not  proffer  a  ransom. 
Not  as  hucksters  might  do  we  wage  our  war,  but  as  soldiers  : 
Not  with  gold,  but  the  sword.  Our  lives  Ave  set  on  the  issue. 
Whether  your  rule  or  mine  be  Fortune's  pleasure, — our  mis- 
tress,— 
Let  us  by  valor  decide." 

In  fact  this  light-hearted  soldier  of  fortune,  perhaps 
because  more  easily  and  promptly  disposed  of  than  Hanni- 
bal, was  always  treated  with  truly  chivalric  courtesy  in 
Roman  annals. 

There  are  other  important  phases  in  Ennius's  life-work. 
Indeed,  though  lacking  in  humor,  and  only  mentioned  by 


36  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

courtesy,  last,  among  the  ten  writers  of  comedy,  he  put  all 
liis  iiery  energy  into  his  Hellenistic  tragedies.  Fragments 
of  his  "  Medea,"  which  Cicero  calls  a  "  word-for-word  ren- 
dering from  the  Greek,"  can  be  proiitably  compared  with 
Euri])ides's  original.  Perhaps  it  is  as  a  schoolmaster  that 
he  introduced  so  curious  and  dubious  a  line  as 

"The  ship 
Called  Argo,  since  in  her  picked  Argive  men 
Were  caiTted. " 

In  general  we  should  greatly  like  to  compare  sticli  a  Latin 
play,  entire,  with  the  Greek  original.  Yet  more  tantaliz- 
ing are  the  rather  copious  fragments  of  an  "Alexander," 
describing  the  day  when  Paris  is  recognized  and  restored  to 
princely  honors  in  Troy.  The  reconstruction  of  this  play, 
by  llibbeck,  with  the  aid  of  surviving  verses  from  a  Greek 
original  also,  has  been  measurably  successful.  Ennius  ap- 
pears to  have  composed  at  least  one  original  Koman  drama, 
on  the  happy  subject  of  the  seizure  of  the  Sabine  women. 

Most  of  Ennius's  other  writings  were  seemingly  grouped 
under  the  general  name  of  Saturm.  By  his  time  the  word 
had  probably  attained  nearly  the  meaning  of  Miscellanies, 
though  there  are  still  some  fragments  from  lost  "  Satires" 
which  indicate  a  dialogue,  i.e.,  a  certain  dramatic  form. 

We  hear  of  an  especial  essay  on  Gastronomy,  describing 
dainty  dishes  in  rapturous  language.  This  was  a  free  ver- 
sion from  Greek,  as  was  an  essay  explaining  away  the 
divine  myths  as  tales  of  mere  human  beings  or  natural 
phenomena.  Indeed,  this  rationalizing  jn-ocess  still  bears 
the  name  of  Euhemeros.  Ennius  has  a  verse,  audacious 
for  conservative  Rome  and  his  day,  which  is  partly  verified 
by  modern  philology  : 

"  That  I  mean  by  'Jupiter'   which  among  Greeks   is  called 
the  air, 
That  becomos,  in  turn,  wind,    cloud,  rain,   cold,  and   last 
tliin  air  again." 


ENNIUS  37 

But  Ennins's  chief  work  is  certainly  the  ^'Annales."  Even 
the  remnants  we  have  should  be  carefully  studied  by  every- 
one who  would  know  what  is  best  in  Latin  art  or  life. 
Many  citations  are  offered  us  by  Macrobius  expressly  to 
show  Virgil's  remarkable  indebtedness  to  this  predecessor. 

We  are  glad  to  be  assured  that  this  career  was  an  active 
and  fruitful  one  to  the  end.  It  was  stated  in  the  twelfth 
book  of  the  "  Annales  "  that  the  poet  was  sixty-seven  when 
composing  it,  and  our  citations  prove  positively  that  he 
completed  eighteen  books.  His  epitaph  on  his  friend 
Africanus  is  quite  in  the  stern  pagan  spirit  of  requital  : 

"  Here  is  he  laid  unto  whom  no  man,  be  he  foeman  or  comrade, 
Ever  was  able  to  give  recompense  worthy  his  deeds." 

Ennins's  own  memorial  verse,  whether  from  his  pen  or 
not,  breathes,  even  in  its  confidence,  a  tone  more  congenial 
to  the  modern  mind  : 

"  None  shall  honor  my  funeral  rites  with  tears  or  lamenting  ; 
Why?  Because  still  do  I  flit,  living,  from  lip  unto  lip." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  dramatic  fragments  of  Ennius  are  found  in  Ribbeck's  "  Tragi- 
corum,"  the  other  remains  in  Biihrens.  See  also  the  monograph  by 
Lucian  Miiller.  For  a  selection,  with  notes,  see  Merry's  "  Fragments 
of  Roman  Poetry."  This  useful  little  book  gives  also  some  hint  of 
Ribbeck's  method  in  reconstructing  lost  plays. 

The  copious  chapter  on  Ennius  by  Sellar  in  his  "  Roman  Poets  of  the 
Republic  "  is  illustrated  with  versions  of  the  chief  fragments,  and  is 
perhaps  the  most  spirited  in  the  whole  standard  work. 


\\^\Z. 


CHAPTER  V 

PLAUTUS 
(250-184  B.C.) 

Titus  Maccius  Plautus,  chief  anthor  of  extant  Latin 
comedies,  indeed  our  principal  source  for  early  and  collo- 
quial Latin,  was  doubtless  somewhat  Ennius's  senior.  We 
have  met  as  yet  no  Eoman  writer  who,  by  pure  creative 
imagination  and  devotion  to  the  highest  creative  ideals  of 
art,  fully  deserves  the  Greek  name  of  poet.  Least  lofty 
of  all  is  this  figure. 

Plautus  or  Plotus  meant  in  Umbria  "  flat-foot,"  Mac- 
cus  is  a  stock  character  of  the  old  rustic  farce, — like 
Pantaloon  or  Clown.  The  names  are  too  fitting  to  be 
accidental  :  clownish  and  unbuskin'd  indeed  is  his  art. 
He  was  a  native  of  Umbrian  Sarsina,  the  last  Italian  town 
to  submit  to  Rome,  hence  not  at  all  a  centre  of  the  new 
culture. 

Plautus  in  Rome  was  at  first  a  servant  to  actors,  later  an 

unsuccessful  roving  trader,  then  a  helper  in  a  mill,  finally 

a  playwright.   Few  careers  could  be  humbler, 

Qeinus.  m.,  3.  M.  ^^.^^^  ^^^  Roman  point  of  view.     The  chief 

actor  of  the  troop  or  "  herd  "  was  usually  a  f reedman  at 
best,  his  company  all  or  mostly  slaves.  Their  employment 
was  a  social  stigma  unfitting  them  even  for  military  ser- 
vice. They  were,  like  mountebanks  at  our  country  fairs, 
under  the  special  surveillance  of  the  police,  who  administered 
vigorous  floggings,  either  for  poor  performance  or  for  any 
audacity  toward  those  in  high  station.     In  fact,  drama  in 

38 


PLAUTU8  39 

republican  Rome  was  simply  a  free  show  and  vulgar  amuse- 
ment at  popular  festivals,  attended  by  entire  families. 
Disorder  and  inattention  were  the  rule.  Hissing,  or  ap- 
plause, or  even  largesse  thrown  to  the  actors,  meant  for 
them  failure  or  success.  In  the  former  case,  even  the 
playwright  lost  the  modest  fee  expected  from  the  magis- 
trates who  held  the  games.  Of  competition,  or  real  prizes, 
we  hear  nothing. 

Plautus's  familiarity  with  Greek  speech  he  shared  to  a 
great  extent  with  his  hearers  of  high  and  low  degree,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  bilingual  puns,  etc.,  freely  introduced. 
He  may  have  improved  his  knowledge  on  his  journeyings. 
Sailors  have  a  notorious  fondness  for  the  theatre,  and  for 
other  forms  of  diversion  only  too  freely  portrayed. in  these 
comedies.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  scholarly  in  him  ; 
and  we  have  the  detailed  statement  of 
.,  J3.  Ggiii^js  t,hat  Roman  comedy  generally  did 
but  roughen  and  blur  the  finer  originals. 

Inadequate  as  are  our  fragments  of  the  Attic  Middle  and 
JSTew  Comedy,  they  quite  bear  out  Gellius's  strictures. 
While  the  Plautine  plots,  characters,  main  lines  of  dia- 
logue, and  finer  humor,  are  unmistakably  Greek,  some 
more  or  less  amusing  "  gags,"  allusions  to  Roman  condi- 
tions and  recent  events,  show  Plautus's  own  homely 
mother-wit.  Swift  action,  lively  dialogue,  above  all  a 
racy,  vigorous  Latin  style,  we  may  also  owe  in  large  part, 
or  wholly,  to  him. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  difficulty.  We  do  not 
have  the  plays  as  Plautus  taught  them  to  his  actors.  In 
particular,  few  if  any  of  the  prologues  date  from  his  time. 
It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  his  name,  though  not  quite 
so  uncertain  as  Homer's,  covers  in  a  vague  fashion  a  large 
mass  of  Graeco-Roman  drama,  borrowed  from  decadent 
Athens  in  the  first  place,  and  recast  without  scruple  as 
often  as  each  play  was  revived  after  his  day. 


40  THE    REPUBLICAN   AGE 

Yet  again,  Varro,  the  learned  antiquarian  of  Cicero's 
time,  found  in  circulation  as  "  Plautine  "  the  incredible 
Qeiiius,  iii.,  3,  number  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  com- 
"•  edies,   i.e.,  nearly  the   whole  mass  of  early 

Latin  drama.  Twenty-one  of  these,  Varro  found,  had 
been  accepted  by  all  previous  critics.  Nineteen  others  he 
himself  thought  genuine.  Our  MSS.  contain  twenty,  and 
large  fragments  of  another,  the  "  Vidularia."  The  natural 
ijiference,  that  we  have  Varro's  first  class,  is  very  probably 
true,  but  hardly  proven. 

The  scene  is  always  laid  in  a  Greek  city,  often  Athens. 
The  chief  character  is  usually  an  audacious,  tricky  slave  ; 
quite  enough,  in  itself,  to  show  that  the  Romans  accounted 
this  drama  as  neither  realistic  nor  of  serious  importance, 
for  the  Roman  slave  of  real  life  was  held  in  sterner  subjection. 
The  slave  is  most  often  engaged  in  embezzling,  from  his 
owner  or  otherwise,  money  for  the  profligate  and  spend- 
thrift *^  young  master."  The  latter  is  generally  in  love 
with  some  damsel  of  low  degree  and  questionable  character, 
who  pretty  regularly  proves  at  last  to  be  a  great  heiress, 
kidnapped  in  childhood. 

Of  course  by  no  means  all  the  comedies  contain  just  this 
series  of  incidents.  Yet  such  was  clearly  the  line  along 
which  popular  favor,  and  freedom  from  official  disapproval, 
could  be  most  securely  won,  in  Rome  as  in  Athens.  Hence 
the  hackneyed  character  of  nearly  all  the  plays.  The 
masks,  in  Terence  even  the  names,  would  often  fit  one  old 
man  or  youth,  villainous  slave  or  parasite,  as  well  as 
another.  The  parasite,  or  hanger-on  in  wealthy  houses,  is 
the  chief  comic  character,  always  hungry,  generally  un- 
scrujiulous,  constantly  a  butt  of  coarsest  ridicule. 

Naturally,  we  shall  have  most  to  say  of  the  few  plays 
which  rise  out  of  this  mass  into  something  like  originality 
and  interest.  The  prologue  of  the  "Captives"  makes 
strenuous  claim  to  such  distinction. 


PLAUTUS  41 

"  'Twill,  suro,  be  worth  your  while  to  note  this  play. 

'Tis  luade  with  care,  not  as  the  othei'S  are, 
Captivi.  V8S.  ^y.^j^  ^^^  j^^j  Ijj^gg^  ^j^^^^  ^^  j_^^  recalled. 

Here  is  no  perjured  pander,  shameless  woman, 
Nor  braggart  soldier. ' ' 

And  again  at  the  close  : 

"  This  our  comedy,  spectators,  is  for  honest 
Vss.  1029  ff.  ,  J 

morals  made     .     .     , 

Rarely  do  the  poets  fashion  such  a  comedy  as  this. 

Where  the  good  are  rendered  better. " 

Though  hardly  deserving  Lessing's  extravagant  praise  as 
the  best  of  all  comedies,  the  play  really  is  romantic  and 
rather  ennobling  in  tone. 

Bat  the  audience  no  doubt  better  enjoyed  the  Epilogue 
of  the  "Asinaria  :" 

' '  If  behind  his  goodwife's  back  this  old  man 
Vss.  94a  ff.  1  •  4.4.1     <^ 

had  a  little  fun, 

Nothing  new  or  strange  he  did,  nor  different  from  the  common 

run. 
If  you  wish  to  beg  him  off  and  save  him  from  his  cudgelling 
This  by  loud  applause  you'll  have  no  trouble  in  accomplish- 
ing. " 

This  finale,  mingling  with  the  acted  scene  the  real  fears  of 
the  slavish  player,  gives  a  lively  glimpse  into  the  ignoble 
theatrical  conditions. 

Perhaps  the  most  amusing  character  is  the  Braggart 
Soldier.  He  appears  accompanied  by  his  rather  weary 
flatterer  Artotrogos  (Breadeater),  who  rehearses  the  num- 
bers he  has  slain.  The  soldier's  name,  "  Castlecitycon- 
qneror,"  is  of  course  itself  absurd. 

"  Soldier :      What  is  the  grand  sum  total  ? 
"vs8.''46«"'"''         Flatterer :  Seven  thousand  ! 

Soldier :      So  many  should  it  be.     You  reckon 
well. 


42 


THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 


Flatterer . 


Soldier : 
Flatte7-er 


Soldier : 
Flatterer 


Soldier : 
Flatte7-er 

Soldier  : 


Why,  in  Cappadocia,  at  a  single  blow 

You  had  slain  five  hundred,  but — your  sword  was 

dull. 
Poor  wretched  infantry,  I  let  them  live. 
Why  say  what  all  men  know,  that  on  the  earth 
You  only,  Pyrgopolinikes,  live 
In  valor,  beauty,  deeds,  unconquer'dest  ? 
All  women  love  you  :  and  good  reason  too  : 
You  are  so  handsome  :  like  those  yesterday 
That  plucked  my  cloak. 
(Eagerly)  What  did  they  say  to  you  ? 

They  asked  me  :  '  Is  this  Achilles  ?  '     So  said  one. 

'  Yes,  'tis  his  brother,'  said  I.     Then  the  other  : 

'  Well,  he  is  handsome,  surely ;  *  so  she  said  : 

'  And  noble.     See  how  well  his  hair  becomes  him. 

Happy  those  women  are  with  whom  he  wives.' 

Did  they  say  so  ? 

Why  yes  I     Both  made  me  swear 

To-day  I'd  bring  you  in  procession  by. 

To  be  too  handsome  is  a  piteous  thing  !  " 


The  cowardice,  brutality,  and  lawless  desires  of  this  hero 
having  been  duly  laid  bare,  we  have  no  objections  when  he 
is  cudgelled,  ridiculed,  even  defrauded,  in  the  finale.  He 
has  none  of  Falstaff's  wit  and  good  humor  to  win  our  liking 
in  spite  of  ns.  But  neither  is  there  any  other  character  in 
the  play  who  calls  out  our  deeper  sympathy. 

The  best  of  the  prologues,  that  of  the  "  Trinummus,^^  re- 
fusing to  betray  the  plot,  says  : 


Trinummus, 
V8S.  17  ff. 


"  The  old  men  coming  yonder  will  make  clear 
The  story.     In   Greek,    'Thesaurus'  it  was 
called. 

Philemon  wrote  it.     Plautus,  rendering  it 
In  barbarous  speech,  called  it  Trinummus.     .     . 
That's  all.     Farewell.     In  silence  now  attend." 


One  of  the  *'old  men  "  is  coming  ont  of  his  own  house- 


>5 


_2 


a 


g 


PLAUTUS  43 

door,  and  speaks  three  lines  to  his  wife  within,  the  fourth 
as  he  gets  out  of  her  hearing  : 

"  I  beg  you  with  a  garland  crown  our  Lar, 
*  Goodwife,  and  pray  that  this  our  dwelling- 

place 
Be  prosperous,  happy,  blest  and  fortunate  : 
— And  that  I  presently  may  find  you  dead. " 

Such  merry  Jests   on  wedded  misery,  evidently   brought 

down  the  house,  and  are  as  much  stock  material  as  our 

gibes  at  stepmothers  or  mothers-in-law. 

Another  type  still  familiar  is  thus  satirized :   it  is  the 

gossips 

".     .     .    Who,  knowing  nothing,  claim  to  know 
V»i,  205-9.  .,     ,, 

it  all. 

What  each  intends,  or  will  intend,  they  know. 

What  in  the  queen's  ear  the  king  said,  they  know. 

They  know  what  Juno  chatted  of  with  Jove. 

What  never  was  or  is, — they  know  it,  though." 

The  "  Trinummus  "  is  the  cleanest  of  all  the  Plautine  plays  ; 
partly  because  no  feminine  characters  appear  at  all. 

The  best  plot,  however,  is  the  "Captives,"  already  men- 
tioned. Two  young  men,  master  and  slave,  from  Elis, 
have  been  taken  prisoners  in  war  by  the  ^tolians.  They 
exchange  names  and  characters,  so  when  their  purchaser, 
old  Hegio,  allows  the  servant  to  go  home  and  negotiate  an 
exchange  with  Hegio's  own  captive  son,  it  is  really  the  mas- 
ter who  escapes.  This  deception  is  unwittingly  betrayed 
by  still  another  Elean  prisoner,  who  knows  them  both  well. 
Angry  old  Hegio  loads  chains  and  hardships  on  the  heroic 
slave.  But  the  young  master  presently  returns  with  Hegio's 
son,  to  conclude  the  exchange.  He  brings  also  the  start- 
ling news,  that  his  valiant  slave-comrade,  who  is  suffering 
in  his  stead,  is  himself  another  son  of  Hegio,  stolen  in  in- 
fancy by  a  rascally  slave.     The  latter  is  brought  along  to 


44  THE    REPUBLICAN   AGE 

confess,  and  is  hurried  off  to  the  hangman  while  all  else 
ends  happily. 

This  is  a  really  moving  melodrama,  enlisting  our  sympathy 
strongly  for  the  captives  and  slaves.  There  is  a  vulgar 
parasite,  as  usual,  and  some  unusually  stupid  jesting.  We 
are  tempted  to  charge  all  such  details  to  Plautus,  and  the 
finer  features  to  the  Greek  original.  At  any  rate,  the 
romantic  play  helps  us  to  understand  Avhy  Menander  and  his 
school  looked  to  Euripides,  not  to  Aristophanes,  as  their 
great  progenitor.  This  plot  is  quite  as  tragic,  in  the  early 
sense  of  the  word,  as  Euripides's  Tauric  Iphigenia,  or  even 
the  Sophoclean  Philoctetes.  Those  two  great  fifth-century 
dramatists,  however,  probably  dared  not  put  upon  the  tragic 
scene  a  frankly  contemporaneous  stovy.  The  fourth-cen- 
tury comedy  had  no  such  fears.  Yet  we  seem  almost  to 
hear  an  echo  of  Antigone's  voice  when  the  slave-captive, 
after  the  trick  is  detected,  faces  his  father's  threats  of 
torture  with  noble  disdain. 

"  Since  for  no  sin  I  fall,  little  I  reck. 
^2-88^'*  If  he,  who  promised,  comes  not,  and  I  die. 

This  will  be  counted  honor  still,  in  death, 
That  I  from  servitude  and  hostile  hands 
Restored  my  master  to  his  home  and  father  ; 
And  here  I  rather  chose  to  put  my  life 
In  peril,  than  that  he  should  be  destroyed." 

Virgil,  most  constant  and  ingenious  of  imitators,  may 
have  taken  the  cue  for  a  notable  speech  of  Neoptolemos 
from  Hegio's  mocking  retort : 

^547-49!"  '"'     "  ^"J^y  *1^^*  S^^^y'  *^i^"'  i^  Acheron  .! " 

The  Plautine  "  Menaechmi "  is  the  undoubted  original  for 
Shakespeare's  "  Comedy  of  Errors  "  :  and  is  less  incredible, 
since  only  one  pair  of  long-parted  and  indistinguishable 
twin  brothers  dodge  each  other  on  and  off  the  scene.  So 
the  "  Aulularia,"  or  Pot  of  Grold,  is  the  avowed  prototype 


PLAUTUS  45 

of  Moliere's  "  L'Avare,"  and  less  directly  of  other  misers 
on  many  a  modern  comic  stage. 

One  striking  lack  in  Plautus,  to  a  student  familiar  with 
the  Aristoplianic  comedy,  is  the  Chorus.  There  is  really 
only  one  scene  in  all  the  twenty  plays  wliere  anything  of 
the  sort  can  be  traced.  That  is  in  the  "Rudens,"  and  the 
choir  of  disconsolate  fishermen  are  curiously  useless,  adding 
at  best  only  a  bit  of  local  color  to  a  scene  of  shipwreck. 
A-S  an  elegy  on  Fisherman's  Luck  it  has  a  certain  pathos  of 
its  own. 

•'  Most  wretched  in  every  way  is  the  life  of  men  who  are 
poverty  stricken ; 
And  especially  those  who  have  learnt  no  trade,   who  are 

destitute  of  employment. 
Whatever  they  happen  to  have  in  the  house,  they  perforce 

therewith  are  contented. 
But  as  for  ourselves,  how  wealthy  we  are  you  may  judge 

pretty  well  by  our  costume. 
These  hooks  that  you  see,  and  bamboo  poles,  are  our  means 

for  attaining  a  living  ; 
And  every  day  from  the  city  we  come,  to  secure  a  subsistence, 

hither. 
Instead  of  gymnastics  and  boyish  games,  this  toil  is  our 

exercise  only. 
Sea-urchins  and  limpets  we  strive  to  secure,  with  oysters  and 

scallops  and  cockles ; 
The  nettles  as  well,  in  the  sea  that  dwell,  and  the  striped 

crabs  and  the  mussels. 
And  among  the  rocks  after  that  with  our  liooks  and  lines  we 

go  a-flshing. 
To  capture  our  food  from  out  of  the  sea.     But  if  no  luck  is 

our  portion. 
And  we  catch  no  fish,  then,  salted  ourselves,  well  drenched 

with  the  briny  water. 
To  our  homes  we  go,  and  slink  out  of  sight,  and  to  bed  with- 
out any  supper. 
And  unless  we  have  eaten  the  cockles  we  caught,  our  dinner 
has  been  no  better." 


46  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

Lastly  we  may  quote  a  passage  or  two  of  a  prologue 
which  is  certainly  not  from  Plautus's  pen.  But  for  an 
allusion  in  it  to  Carthage  as  still  existent,  indeed,  the 
language  would  bring  it  down  nearly  to  Varro's  own  day. 
It  was  written  for  a  revival  of  the  "Casina,"  a  most  foul 
and  brutal  play.  The  writer  faces  frankly  certain  natural 
criticisms  by  his  audience. 

Casina  "  Some  here,  methinks,  will  say  among  them- 

Prologue.  selves, 

'  Prithee,  what's  this  ?     A  wedding  among  slaves  ? 
A  strange  thing  this  to  play,  that's  nowhere  done! ' 
I  say,  in  Carthage  this  is  done,  and  Greece, 
And,  of  our  country,  in  Apulia  too. 
Ay,  servile  marriages  more  carefully 
Are  celebrated  than  a  freeman's  there." 

But  we  cite  this  intelligent  later  critic,  here,  for  the 
most  favorable  view  that  can  be  given  of  Plautine  comedy, 
as  a  harmless,  cheerful  pastime  for  a  festal  day.  Nearly  all 
his  words  we  can  echo  cordially,  provided  we  may  turn 
away  from  the  "  Casina"  to  such  melodramas  as  the  "  Cap- 
tives" and  "Trinummus"  : 

••  The  men  who  drink  old  wine  I  count  as  wise, 
And  those  that  gladly  hear  an  ancient  play. 
Since  antique  words  and  phrases  please  you  well. 
An  old-time  drama  should  delight  you  more. 
For  the  new  comedies,  that  now  appear, 
Are  even  more  debased  than  these  new  coins. 

Now  we  have  hearkened  to  the  People's  cry, 
That  you  desire  to  hear  the  Plautine  plays, 
And  so  bring  out  this  ancient  comedy. 
.     .     .     All  dramas  it  surpassed  when  acted  first. 
The  flower  of  poets  still  were  living  then, 
Though  now  departed  whither  all  must  pass.     .     .     . 

And  with  full  earnestness  we  beg  you  all 
Kindly  to  give  attention  to  our  troop. 


PLAUTUS  47 

Cast  from  your  minds  your  cares  and  debts  away. 

Let  no  one  stand  in  terror  of  his  dun. 

'Tis  holiday.     The  banks  keep  holiday. 

'Tis  peace.     The  forum  has  its  halcyon  days.     .     .     ." 

If  the  passages  here  cited  make  the  general  sketch  of 
PUiutus's  art  seem  too  unfavorable,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  they  are  deliberately  chosen  as  "purple  patches,"  not 
as  fairly  typical  extracts.  The  importance  of  these  come- 
dies to  linguistic  students  cannot  be  overrated.  They  are 
our  chief  resource  for  that  colloquial  Latin — overshadowed 
but  never  eradicated  by  the  literary  idiom  from  Cicero  to 
Quintilian — from  which  the  Romance  languages  derive 
their  origin.  But  as  fine  art,  or  even  as  original  creations, 
they  fall  under  a  deadlier  test. 

Still,  though  the  plots  are  nearly  all  ignoble,  sometimes 
too  debasing  to  be  outlined,  the  ordinary  tone  of  the  dia- 
logue is  much  purer  than,  e.g.,  Aristophanes's.  Of  Plautus 
himself  we  get  a  rather  agreeable  impression  as  a  merry, 
kind-hearted  man  of  homely  wit  and  shrewd  practical 
judgment.  Our  quarrel  is  with  the  ignoble  life  and  mo- 
rality which  had  evidently  been  set  forth  in  the  Attic  New 
Comedy,  and  which  was  not  bettered  when  its  graceful 
scenes  were  "  butchered  to  make  a  Roman  holiday."  For 
young  readers  we  may  pronounce  the  **Captivi"  desira- 
ble, the  "Trinummus"  harmless,  the  ''Miles"  and 
"  Menaechmi "  coarse  but  amusing.  For  the  rest  a  few 
extracts,  like  the  exquisitely  poetical  prologue  and  stirring 
scene  of  the  shipwreck  in  the  "Rudens,"  may  well  suffice. 

When  we  remember  that  Menanderand  Philemon  beheld 
the  meteoric  career  of  Alexander,  that  Plautus  lived 
through  the  terrible  strain  and  stress  of  the  llannibalic  in- 
vasion, we  realize  that  such  art  as  this  must  be  quite 
divorced  from  the  real  and  serious  life  of  a  nation  or  an 
age. 

To  Gellius,  often  quoted  already,  we  owe  the  preserva- 


48  THE   REPUBLICAN   AGE 

tion  of  tlic  epitapli,  but  we  sliare  his  doubts,  despite  Varro's 
assunuice,  wliether  the  genial  fun-maker-in-cliiei"  for  the 
liouian  popuhice  composed  for  himself  these  three  con- 
ceited and  rather  awkward  hexameters  : 

"  Since  he  has  passed  to  the  grave,  for  Plautus  Comedy  sor- 
rows. 

Now  is  the  stage  deserted;  and  Play,  and  Jesting,  and 
Laughter, 

Dirges,  though  written  in  numbers  yet  numberless,  join 
in  lamenting." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Bobn  translation  of  Plautus  is  quite  faithful  enough.  But  the 
study  of  ancient  comedy  should  begin,  of  course,  with  some  such  drama 
of  Aristophanes  as  the  "Clouds,"  "  Birds,"  or  "  Frogs,"  preferably  in 
Frere's  or  Rogers's  brilliant  versions.  The  large  element  of  realism  in 
Euripides,  which  made  later  comedy  regard  him  as  the  true  master, 
can  be  best  seen  in  the  "Alkestis. "  The  meagre  fragments  of  Menander's 
school  can  hardly  be  treated  in  English  at  all.  An  essay  upon  that 
group,  by  the  present  autlior,  will  be  found  in  the  Warner  "  Library  " 
under  Philemon.  The  method  of  approach  through  Aristophanes  here 
indicated  is  well  illustrated  by  the  most  helpful  volume  on  Plautus  and 
Terence,  by  Rev.  W.  L  Collins,  in  the  series  of  Ancient  Classics  for 
English  Readers. 

A  volume  is  to  be  desired  which  shall  render  faithfully  as  much  of 
Plautus  as  can  be  profitably  read  by  students  in  English.  It  could 
contain  three  or  four  plays  all  but  entire,  connected  scenes  from  others, 
mere  bits  from  man}'. 

Readers  of  French  may  profitably  compare  the  general  plot,  and 
even  particular  scenes  and  speeches,  of  Moliere's  "  L'Avare  "  with  the 
*' Aulularia."  Tlie  "Comedy  of  Errors"  is  of  course  available  for  a 
similar  comparison  with  the  "  MensBchmi."  The  serious  student  of 
(•onii)arative  literature  or  modern  drama  can  extend  this  paragraph  in- 
definitely. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TERENCE   AND   HIS   FRIENDS 

The  superior  popularity  of  comedy  in  Rome  is  attested 
by  a  passage  in  the  prologue  of  Plautus's  "  Ampliitruo." 
Mercury  announces  the  play,  which  is  a  clever  but  irrever- 
ent burlesque  on  the  serious  Aischylean  drama,  as  a  trag- 
edy. When  the  spectators  "knit  their  brows ^^  over  this, 
he  compromises,  and  finally  calls  it  a  tragicomedy  :  "  with 
everv  verse  the  same." 

We  hear  of  no  exclusively  tragic  writers,  but  at  least 
three  authors  are  known  through  comedies 
alone.  Despite  Gellius's  severe  judgment, 
Caecilius,  the  second  of  the  three,  was  popular  enough  to 
produce  on  the  stage  forty  comedies.  All  are  lost.  The 
fragments  generally  are  rough,  comparatively  uninterest- 
ing, and  meagre. 

Caecilius  was  long  the  housemate,  perhaps  a  protege,  of 
statius  Csediius,  Ennius.  His  most  interesting  scene  is  the 
1 168  B.C.  last  one  recorded  of  his  oAvn  life.     The  young 

and  unknown  alien  Terentius  Afer,  having  the  audacity 
to  offer  a  comedy,  called  "Andria,"  the  sdiles  required  him 
to  take  it  first  of  all  to  the  veteran  Cascilius  for  a  critical 
judgment.  The  old  author  was  dining.  After  the  first 
few  lines  were  heard  the  humble  youth  was  bidden  to  leave 
his  low  reading-stool  and  join  the  guests  at  table  as  a  wel- 
come equal.  The  prompt  and  generous  approval  of  the 
elder  playwright  assured  the  youth  a  favorable  hearing. 
His  play  was  acted  two  years  or  so  later. 

Caecilius  was  himself  an  Insubrian  Kelt  by  origin,  Ter- 

49 


50  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

ence  an  African  of  some  Lib3^an  clan.  Both  had  come  to 
Rome  as  prisoners  and  slaves,  like  Andronicus.  From  such 
curions  sources  were  recruited  the  leading  men  of  letters, 
in  Rome,  at  the  proudest  epoch  of  her  history. 

Terence  died  before  he  was  thirty,  but  completed,  and 

produced,  within  seven  years,  six  comedies. 

All  are  translations  from  Menander  or  Ap- 

167-160  B.C.  . 

pollodoros,  leading  authors  of  the  Attic 
*'  New  Comedy,"  though  once  a  single  scene  from  Diphilos 
was  inserted.  Co7itaminatio,  or  combination  of  portions 
from  two  similar  dramas,  is  also  avowed  in  the  prologues. 
In  these  plays  we  find  no  allusions  to  Roman  matters,  little 
which  Menander  might  not  have  said.  We  miss  the  swift, 
rollicking  action  of  Plautus.  Even  the  easy,  rough  lyric 
rhythms  have  all  but  vanished,  leaving  merely  polished 
conversation. 

The  general  picture  portrayed  is  invariably  the  ignoble, 
commonplace  city  life  already  too  familiar  from  Plautus. 
In  every  play  the  "love  aifair"  is  a  vulgar  intrigue.  Not 
one  of  the  plots  can  be  frankly  explained  to-day.  The 
stock  types — the  lying,  knavish  slave,  the  gullible  father, 
the  youthful  spendthrift,  the  hungry  parasite,  and  worse 
characters — pass  constantly  across  the  stage.  "Notliing 
is  tittered  now  not  said  before,"  confesses  the  poet  in  a 
frank  prologue.  The  very  names  grow  hackneyed.  There 
are  indeed  some  realistic  character-sketches,  like  the  "  Self- 
tormentor,"  effective  contrasts,  like  the  "  Brothers,"  of 
whom  one  is  a  rustic,  the  other  a  city  gentleman. 

But  all  this  is  undoubtedly  the  Greek  author's  property, 
and  we  have  even  the  masterly  criticism  of  Caesar,  to  the  ef- 
fect that  Terence  is  but  a  7irt//-Menander,  offering  us  the 
Athenian's  grace  without  his  force.  Cicero,  too,  speaks  of 
his  "weakened  effects."  We  cannot  wonder  that  such  an 
artist  repeatedly  failed  to  hit  the  taste  of  his  popular 
audience.     A  translator,    who   added   nothing,  and  even 


TERENCE   AND    HIS   FRIENDS  51 

missed  the  true  dramatic  force  of  his  original,  we  might 
be  ready  to  call  him. 

Yet  this,  even  if  essentially  true,  would  be  most  in- 
adequate and  misleading.  Terence  despised  the  popular 
taste.  To  Plautus  and  other  predecessors  he  alludes  with 
courteously  veiled  disdain,  or  at  least  with  fearless  confi- 
dence, in  the  curiously  boyish  and  self-conscious  series  of 
prologues  to  these  six  adaptations.  This  African  youth, 
just  now  a  slave,  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  fore- 
most Romans  of  that  great  age.  The  largest,  noblest. 
Fall  of  Carthage,  Diost  opeu-minded  man  of  the  time  was  doubt- 
146  B.C.  jggg  ^niilianus,  or,  as  he  is  oftener  called, 

Africanus  the  Younger,  the  future  destroyer  of  Carthage, 
whose  friendship  with  Ltelius  is  so  prominent  in  Cicero's 
pair  of  famous  essays,'*^  De  Senectute  "  and  "  Be  Amicitia." 
With  these  two,  and  their  whole  circle,  the  youthful  f reed- 
man  was  on  terms  of  intimacy,  perhaps  of  social  equality. 
That  they  actually  collaborated  in  these  translations  is  a 
charge  which  he  had  no  desire,  very  likely  no  power,  to 
deny. 

"Certain  maligners  say,  that  noblemen 
vis.  15-21.      '    Assist  and  share  in  what  the  poet  writes. 
What  tliey  consider  as  a  grave  reproach 
He  counts  high  honor,  if  he  pleases  them 
Who  please  you  and  the  people,  one  and  all  : 
Whose  aid  in  war,  in  peace,  in  business  life. 
No  man  so  proud  but  at  his  need  accepts  I " 

This  description  could  fit  only  Scipio  ^milianus,  but  is 
not  excessive  for  him  who,  born  the  son  of  Macedonia's 
conqueror,  had  passed  by  adoption  into  the  house  of  the 
victor  over  Hannibal.  Though  strange,  it  seems  clearly 
true,  that  his  innermost  social  circle  was  absolutely  free 
from  all  prejudice  against  race  or  previous  station. 

The  greatest  alien  ornament,  probably,  of  that  circle  was 
a  noble  Greek,  who  had  been  Scipio's  tutor,  and  was  his 


52  THE    KEPUBLICAN    AGE 

life-long  friend:  Polybios,  largest-minded  and  most 
statesmanlike  of  Greek  historians.  His  father  had  been 
chief  of  the  Achaian  league,  the  last  hope  of  Greek  union 
and  freedom.  Polybios  came  to  see,  and  taught  his 
countrymen,  that  provincial  security  under  Rome  was  bet- 
ter than  the  old  turbulent  life  of  liberty.  Four  or  five 
haughty  states  learned,  like  Macedonia,  the  same  bitter 
lesson  in  that  same  generation.  In  the  Scipionic  circle  the 
large  responsibilities  of  world -empire,  the  common  in- 
terests of  man,  were  fit  subjects  for  freest  table-talk. 

So  when,  in  the  performance  of  the  "  Self-tormentor, '' 
was  heard  the  famous  verse 

' '  I  am  a  man  :  naught  human  I  account 
Alien  to  me," 

the  audience  which  rose  and  cheered  may  well  have  heard 
behind  the  Avords  a  more  potent  voice  than  either  Terence's 
or  Menander's. 

Laelius,  like  his  friend,  was  a  polished  speaker  and 
writer,  at  home  in  both  languages.  There  is  an  anecdote 
of  him  that  once,  coming  late  to  dinner  from  his  study,  he 
quoted  in  apology,  to  his  Avife,  a  fine  poetical  passage  just 
composed.  That  passage  now  stands  in  the  Terentian 
comedy  mentioned  a  moment  ago. 

The  evidence,  it  will  be  noted,  is  much  more  substantial 
than  in  the  Baconian  controversy.  To  many  it  seems  con- 
vincing. It  must  be  remembered,  that  almost  any  given 
passage  in  Terence  maij,  for  all  we  know,  be  wholly  absent 
from  the  Greek  original.  We  are  sure  that  at  least  the 
characters  and  plots  were  borrowed  :  but  that  is  nearly  all 
we  can  positively  assert. 

Now,  in  Terentian  comedy  we  discover  easy  grace  of 
manners  in  nearly  all  characters,  the  utmost  courtesy,  even 
real  humanity  of  spirit,  frequent  wide  though  light-hearted 
glimpses    at    life,    literature,  and    philosophic    thought. 


TERENCE    AND    HIS   FiilENDS  53 

Above  all,  we  find  the  colloquial  Latin  style  risen  at  a 
bound  to  the  highest  level  it  ever  attained.  Ennlus,  in 
tragedy  and  occasionally  in  his  dactylic  annals,  has  a  far 
more  sonorous  voice,  a  statelier  stride.  Such  triumphs  of 
labored  literary  skill  as  Cicero's  long  sweeping  period  : 
e.g..  Rem  puhUcam,  Quirites,  vitamque  vestrum  omnium, 
hona,  for  tunas,  conjuges  liberosque  vestros  .  .  .  ,  are 
yet  to  come.  The  fiery  thrust  of  Catullus's  hendecasyllables, 
the  haunting  melancholy  of  a  Virgilian  hexameter — these 
are  inimitable  creations  of  the  artist's  unique  genius.  But 
such  conventions  and  graces  of  speech  as  can  be  copied,  as 
have  in  fact  been  echoed,  down  to  the  present  moment,  in 
the  Romance  speech  of  four  or  five  courteous,  sensitive,  self- 
conscious  peoples — these  appear  largely,  once  for  all,  in 
the  Latin  of  Terence's  plays. 

Year  after  year  the  boys  of  Westminster  play  these  de- 
cadent Grfeco-Ronian  comedies  to  an  audience  that  would 
not  tolerate  in  English  the  immoralities  of  Congreve  and 
Farquhar,  and  they  also  mimic  Terence's  style,  in  original 
Latin  compositions,  to  enact  on  the  same  stage  the  most 
ludicrous  events  of  their  own  school  life.  In  fact,  wher- 
ever spoken  Latin  is  still  an  elegant  accomplishment,  Ter- 
ence supplies  the  ultimate  source,  the  most  approved 
model.  At  least,  his  humble  name  must  always  remain 
carven  over  the  fountain.  In  all  modern  literature  his 
dramatic  art  is  imitated. 

Whatever  the  authorship,  these  pages  have  the  delicate 
charm,  the  fascination,  of  a  perfect  mastery  in  choice  and 
use  of  words.  We  may  still  try  the  same  test  to  which 
rough  old  Cfficilius  so  promptly  succumbed.  The  first 
scene  of  the  "Andria"  is  a  mere  chat  between  a  suspicious 
old  Athenian  master  and  an  obsequious  slave.  The  "  young 
master,"  Pamphilus,  has  refused  to  accept  the  bride  selected 
for  him.  A  little  adventuress  from  the  island  of  Andros,  a 
grievous  disturber  of  respectable  social  life  generally,  has 


54  THE   EEPUBLICAN    AGE 

long  been  suspected  as  tlie  real  obstacle  to  the  wedding, 
though  Pamphilus  has  never  seemed  devoted,  nor  a  favor- 
ite of  hers.  But  the  real  facts  have  just  come  out.  The 
Andrian,  Chrysis,  has  recently  died.  At  her  funeral  and 
cremation  has  been  seen,  for  the  first  time  i:i  public,  her 
shy  and  lovely  younger  sister,  Glycerium  ;  and  Pamphilus's 
complete  devotion  to  her  was  there  unmistakable. 

At  tliis  point  the  essential  outlines  of  the  plot  can  be 
safely  guessed.  Glycerium  will  prove  to  be  the  long-lost 
sister  of  the  unwelcome  bride,  the  latter  will  cheerfully  ac- 
cept Pamphilus's  friend  as  consolation  prize,  two  weddings 
will  be  announced  at  "  Plaudite." 

And  yet  we  defy  the  cynic  actually  to  peruse  that  single 
scene  without  a  hundred  tender  thoughts  for  this  anxious 
father  of  a  wayward  son,  for  the  unwedded  lovers  whose 
child  is  born  a  few  days  later,  even  for  the  wretched  girl 
who  was  that  day  cremated.  The  appeal  is  to  universal 
feelings. 

' '  There  too  my  son 

"     *  ^  Alone:  with  Chrysis'  former  lovers  came, 

V88.  106-12.  a  J 

Sharing  the  funeral.     He  meantime  was  sad, 
Shed  an  occasional  tear.     I  was  well  pleased . 
'  If  he,  because  of  slight  acquaintance,  takes 
Her  death  so  much  to  heart,  '—so  ran  my  thought, — 
'  What  if  he  had  loved  her  ?     What  will  this  youth  do 
For  me,  who  am  his  father  ?  '  " 

In  general,  Terence's  people  are  very  unfit  folk  for  our 
friendship  or  respect,  yet  we  are  not  much  the  worse,  and 
sometimes  distinctly  the  better,  for  meeting  them. 

Terence,  having  none  of  Horace's  fondness  for  over-elab- 
oration of  his  phrase,  is  especially  available  for  easy  quota- 
tion. Many  of  his  "  jewels  five  words  long  "  live  on  the 
lips  of  men  who  barely  know  his  name.  John  Winthrop, 
indeed,  most  stainless  and  austere  of  Puritans,  distinguish- 
ing hia  own  notions  of  pious  liberty  from  its  base  counter- 


TEKENCE  AND    HIS   FRIENDS  55 

feit,  gives  due  credit  to  Tereutius  for  the  sentiment 
"  Omnes  sumns  Ucentia  deteriores  "  :  (We  all  by  license  are 
debased).  The  real  master,  Athenian  Menander,  lives  al- 
most solely  through  general  and  moral  truths,  cited  in 
hardly  less  serious  spirit  by  the  moralists  of  later  antiquity  : 
perhaps  Terence  also  will  continue  to  preach  his  mild  and  hu- 
mane ethics,  in  fragmentary  verses,  ages  after  his  plays  are 
lost  forever.  It  will  matter  little  whether  the  thought,  or 
the  phrase,  was  first  struck  out  by  a  world-weary  Athenian 
of  the  fourth  century,  a  Roman  statesman  of  the  second, 
or  by  the  short-lived  African  slave-boy  whose  name  it  will 
bear. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Terence  is,  of  course,  represented  in  the  Bohn  Library,  sharing  a 
Tolume,  rather  quaintly,  with  Phaedrus  the  fabulist.  Among  interest- 
ing recent  revivals  of  the  plays  was  a  performance  of  the  "  Phormio" 
at  Harvard,  for  which  Professor  M.  H.  Morgan  furnished  an  excellent 
text,  and  a  careful  translation  richly  spiced  with  recent  slang. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LOST   WORKS  AND    AUTHORS    OF   THE   REPUBLICAN 

PERIOD 

The  happy  epoch  of  the  Scipios,  already  characterized, 
is  generally  felt  to  close  abruptly  with  the  tragic  death  of 
Tiberius  Gracchus.     This  first  blood  shed  in 
'^Gracchus!  iJi    ^i^ic  strife  was  the  foreshadowing  of  a  tur- 
B.c.  bulent  century,  which  ended  in  the  avowed 

failure  of  senatorial  and  popular  government,  and  the  en- 
Battie  of  Acti-  tlironemcnt  of  an  autocratic  master.  We 
um,  31B.C.  inay  indeed  select  the  date  88  B.C.  for 
the  actual  breaking  down  of  the  old  conditions.  Cer- 
tainly after  Marins  and  Sulla  had  alternately  proscribed 
and  massacred  all  their  personal  enemies,  only  the  shell 
of  the  former  social  order  remained.  For  several  decades 
previous  to  that  time,  however,  literature  had  languished, 
and  at  the  advent  of  the  first  century  before  Christ  we 
may  well  cast  a  glance  backward. 

As  to  the  ages  before  N^vius,  our  utter  poverty  is  but 

shared  with  the  Ciceronian  time  itself  :  on  a  previous  page 

the  belief  has  been  expressed  that  little  or  no 

Supra,  p.  4.         j.g^i  poetry  had  ever  sprung  out  of  the  rugged 

barren  soil  of  Latian  life  and  character. 

But  from  Na^vius  to  Cicero  the  lover  of  literature  trav- 
erses a  region  of  fragmentary  ruins,  or  desolate  sites, 
unlike  any  section  of  Hellenic  story,  unless  it  be  the  period 
of  early  lyric.  It  is  indeed  a  capricious  fate  that  tosses  us 
two  bundles  stuifed  with  Gra3Co-Italic  comedies,  of  complex 

66 


LOST    WORKS   AND    AUTHORS  57 

and  questioned  authorship,  unfit  to  bo  frankly  discussed 
in  the  hearing  of  youth, — and  old  Cato's  manual  for  the 
management  of  a  Campanian  farm. 

Our  regrets  deepen  to  dismay  if  we  are  convinced,  as 
the  present  author  is  convinced,  that  the  best  qualities 
of  Roman  character  were  lost  in  that  century  of  domestic 
bloodshed,  and  that  the  sturdy  earlier  traits 
had,  in  all  likelihood,  already  stamped  them- 
selves upon  works,  in  prose  and  verse,  fully  worthy  and 
adequate  to  reveal  the  masterful  spirit  of  the  race. 

The  epic  of  Nsevius,  even  the  "Annales  "  of  Ennius,  if  put 
into  our  hands  to-day,  would  no  doubt  seem  rough  indeed, 
compared  with  the  Georgics  or  the  ^neid.  The  orations 
of  Cato  had  little  of  Cicero's  fluent  and  copious  diction, 
perhaps  also  a  less  transparent  clearness  of  construction 
and  style.  The  "  Origines  "  would  reveal  little  of  the  Livian 
or  Herodotean  charm.  Possibly,  as  works  of  art,  these 
books  would  not  appeal  to  the  {esthetic  critic  at  all  :  but 
the  Roman  heart  of  oak,  the  sturdy  spirit  that  tired  out  a 
Hannibal  at  last,  and  imposed  the  heavy  yoke  of  servitude 
upon  a  fiercely  resisting  world,  must  have  throbbed  and 
breathed  in  such  utterances  of  such  men. 

The  "De  Rerum  Natura,''  the  ''Atys,"  the  ^Eneid,  the 
"  Pro  Archia,"  the  picturesque  pages  of  Livy,  aud  even  the 
cynical  etchings  of  Tacitus,  are  all  the  work  of  men  wholly 
cut  off  from  political  hopes  or  patriotic  pride,  seeking  in 
literature  a  lofty  consolation,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  the 
best  Greek  art,  never  sure  how  often  any  happy  phrase 
or  rhythmic  harmony  was  their  own,  how  far  an  echo  from 
the  diviner  music  of  Hellas.  Some  or  all  of  these  later 
Roman  works  the  world  accepts  among  its  masterpieces. 
Yet  such  later  artists  would  hardly  have  touched,  nor 
could  they  rightly  interjaret,  the  hearts  of  the  Fabii  and 
the  Marcelli  of  old. 

The  loss  of  the  Grsco-Latin  tragedies  is  less  deplorable. 


58  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

yet  also  grave.  In  certain  cases  we  would  get  a  doubly 
clear  cross-light  on  Koman  scholarship  and  taste,  because 
the  Greek  originals  are  in  our  hands.  A  curious  bit  of 
philology  inserted  by  Ennius  early  in  the  "  Medea''  has  been 

mentioned.     We  may  add  that  he  suppressed 

the  first  two  verses  of  the  Greek  play  alto- 
gether, doubtless  because  his  age  knew  the  "  Smiting 
Kocks"  of  the  myth  to  be  unreal.  Since  these  liberties 
are  taken  at  the  very  beginning  of  a  version  whose  literal- 
ness  is  emphasized  by  Cicero,  we  may  suppose  that  the 
Latin  renderings  usually  reflected  the  tastes  of  a  Eoman 
translator,  manager,  and  audience. 

Pacuvius,  a  nephew,  and,  like  Cfficilius,  a  protege,  of 
Ennius,  was  apparently  also  an  adapter,  or  free  translator, 
220  B  c  -  ^^  Greek  tragedies.    Cicero,  who  accords  him 

145  B.C.  (?)  i\^Q  highest  success  among  all  Eomans  in  this 

craft,  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  roundly  :  ''In  this 
Pacuvius  is  better  than  Sophocles,  in  whose  jilay  Ulysses 

laments  pitifully  over  his  hurt" — while  in 
put.,  H.,  21,  Pacuvius's  drama  that  wisest  man  of  Greece, 
'*'■  when  wounded,  "laments  not  in  excess,  but 

quite  moderately."  Such  bold  canons  of  art  might  produce 
something  more  valuable  than  a  mere  translation.  Pacu- 
vius was  not  only  both  tragedian  and  painter,  but  a  writer 
of  SaturcB :  a  definition  of  which  genre  we  again  hesitate 
to  offer. 

When  the  young  Attius  reads  his  ''Atreus  "  to  the  veteran 
Pacuvius,  we  are  reminded  of  the  first  step  in  Terence's 

career.     The  titles  show  that  Attius  also  is 

Gellius,  xlli.,  2, 

2.  still  serving  up,  to  languid  Roman  audiences. 

Supra,  p.  49.  ^i^g  outworn  myths  of  Hellas,  heroic  or  divine. 
The  opening  lines  of  Euripides's  "  Phoinissai,"  occurring 
among  his  fragments,  indicate  his  scope  also  as  a  rather 
free  translator.  His  ideas  of  Contmnmatio  permitted 
him,  however,  to  combine  with  Sophocles's  ''Antigone," 


LOST    WORKS   AND    AUTHORS  69 

or  "  Philoctetes,"  suggestions  from  other  Greek  plays  on 
these  favorite  themes. 

But  the  most  significant  fact  of  all  is,  that  with  Attius 
tragedy  not  only  culminated,  but  practically  perished  also. 
He  lived  to  see  the  beginnings  of  those  gladiatorial  sports 
and  lavish  pageants  against  whose  fatal  attractiveness  for 
the  vulgar  eye  and  ear  Horace  protests  with  such  humor- 
ous sincerity.  This  gave  the  coiqy  de  grace  to  tragedy  as  a 
popular  diversion.  We  hear  of  later  dramas  occasionally 
as  written,  rarely  as  acted.  Augustus  counted  it  to  him- 
self as  a  merit,  that  his  own  much-elaborated  Ajax  finally 
*'fell  upon  the  sponge":  a  witty  allusion  to  the  Sala- 
minian  hero's  suicide. 

Strangest  of  all  is  the  failure  of  the  Romans  to  encour- 
age, and  preserve,  the  original  dramas  on  native  and  pa- 
triotic themes,  like  Attius's  "  Brutus."     The  two  chief 
fragments  of  this  play,  preserved  by   Cicero,  offer  us  a 
'     di'sam  of  King  Tarquin,  and  its  explanation 

Persians,  vss.    by  the  sccrs,  who  predict  his  dethronement. 

181-99.  rpj^g  former  passage  seems  clearly  suggested 

by  Atossa's  dream  in  Aischylos's  "  Persians."     It  runs  : 

"  When  at  the  night's  command  I  gave  my  frame 
To  rest,  calming  with  sleep  my  wearied  limbs, 
Toward  me,  in  dream,  it  seemed  a  shepherd  drove 
A  fleecy  flock,  of  beauty  wonderful : 
And  that  I  chose  therefrom  two  kindred  rams, 
And  sacrificed  the  fairer  of  the  twain. 
But  then  his  brother  with  his  horns  assailed 
And  butted  me,  who  thus  was  overthrown. 
Falling,  severely  wounded,  on  the  earth 
Supine,  a  wondrous  mighty  miracle 
In  heaven  I  saw  : — the  sun's  bright  radiant  orb 
Gliding,  with  course  unwonted,  to  the  right  !" 

This  is  an  unusually  good  piece  of  dignified  and  free- 
handed  imitation.     We  get  the  decided   impression   that 


60  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

such  dramatic  attempts  were  almost  as  artificial,  imitative, 
alien,  as  those  on  Greek  themes.  Though  comedy,  in  some 
form,  may  seem  rooted  in  the  universal  instinct  of  mimic- 
ry, serious  drama  is  the  rare  production  of  many  favor- 
able conditions  united.  Possibly  it  requires  not  only  the 
genius  of  single  creators,  and  the  uplifting  force  of  an 
heroic  age,  like  Shakespeare's,  Corneille's,  or  Schiller's,  but 
also  an  audience  in  deep  and  earnest  sympathy  with  the 
artist's  aims.  One  at  least  of  two  alternatives  we  must 
accept.  Either  there  was  no  room  for  drama  as  a  serious 
influence  in  the  life  and  education  of  the  Roman  people, 
or  there  was  no  body  of  patriotic  legend  sufficiently  familiar 
and  dear  to  make  effective  appeal  to  them.  Possibly  both 
these  negatives  may  well  be  ventured. 

Of  a  native  and  original  comedy,  Fabula  togata,  we 
caught  a  glimpse  under  Nsvius.  It  seems  to  have  had  a 
brief  and  precarious  life.  Mommsen  does  not  believe  that 
the  scene  was  ever  permitted  to  be  Rome  itself,  though  the 
titles  and  scanty  fragments  indicate  at  least  a  Latian  local 
setting  and  color.  But  this  whole  movement  has  vanished 
quite  as  complel.oly  as  the  old  Atellan  farce.  Only  one 
ignoble  fragment  extends  to  five  lines.  The  very  names  of 
the  poets,  Titinius,  Atta,  Afranius,  are  forgot,  their  date 
uncertain. — To  serious  Roman  drama  we  shall  return  only 
once,  under  Seneca. 

LUCILIUS 

(180-103  B.C.) 

Lucilius's  reckless  productivity  is  rather  maliciously 
dilated  on  by  Horace.  Yet  of  his  thirty  rolls  or  "books" 
surprisingly  little  that  is  quotable,  or  valuable,  remains. 
SaturcB,  with  him  at  least,  are  merely  written  to  be  read, 
though  the  form  of  dialogue  is  not  infrequent.  The  metres 
vary.  The  general  aim  is  a  good-humored,  half-cynical, 
rather  frankly  subjective  view  of  the  political  and  social 


LOST    WOKKS    AND    AUTHORS  61 

world  in  all  its  phases.  Such  a  direct  and  avowed  "  criticism 
of  life  "  is  not  true  poetry.  In  general  the  Saiura  seems  by 
this  time  not  remote  from  Horace's  or  Johnson's  use  of 
the  term.  As  this  is  the  one  literary  type  constantly 
claimed  as  a  purely  Eoman  creation,  we  regret  the  loss  of 
Lucilius,  though  nearly  every  word  we  have  of  his  is  on 
the  smooth  levels  of  commonplace. 

A  much  greater  freedom  of  criticism  on  public  men  was 
permitted  in  such  a  form  than  in  popular  drama.  Tlie 
bold  assault  upon  a  later  Metellus,  in  particular,  must  re- 
mind us  of  Naevius's  fate,  which  did  not  overtake  Lucilius. 
The  glimpse  here  accorded  us  at  the  centre  of  the  world's 
traffic  is  anything  but  ideal,  and  indicates  that  the  spirit 
of  metropolitan  business  life  has  changed  little. 

"But  now  from  dawn  to  dark,  on  holiday 
Or  workday,  and  the  whole  day  too,  the  folk 
And  senators  bustle  about  the  Forum, 
Quitting  it  never,  to  one  task  and  art 
Devoted  ; — to  deceive  most  skilfully, 
To  fight  with  craft,  to  win  by  blandishments, 
To  make  a  stratagem  of  kindliness. 
As  if  they  all  were  foes  of  every  one." 

The  satirist's  own  social  philosophy  is  very  thrifty,  con- 
servative, and  simple. 

"  Man's  virtue  is  to  know  each  thing's  true  worth, 
What's  good  or  bad,  useless,  dishonest,  base  : 
To  know  the  limits  in  our  quest  of  gain, 
To  pay  the  proper  honor  unto  wealth. 
To  grant  to  office  that  which  is  its  due, 
To  be  the  foe  of  evil  men  and  deeds. 
To  count  one's  country's  welfare  first  of  all. 
And  next  our  parents' ;  after  that  our  own. " 

What  we  miss  most  in  this  whole  early  Roman  world 
is  the  voice  of  the  joyous  lyric  poet,  soldier,  boon  com- 


62  THE    REPUBLICAN    AGE 

panion,  lover,  dreamer,  singiug  for  the  pure  delight  in 
life  and  song.  No  Archilochos,  no  Sappho,  no  Anacreon 
do  we  hear,  or  hear  of.  Perhaps  the  rather  stolid  and 
Philistine  view  of  all  human  life  and  effort  just  cited  may 
hint  the  reason. 

After  Cato's  broader  and  more  philosophic  study,  history 
among  the  Romans  seems  to  have  fallen  back  into  the  earlier 
Lost  His-  form  of  prosaic  annals,  as  dry  and  unartistic 

torians.  ^g   ^^^y   ^jjj    Saxon  Chronicle.     Most  to  be 

regretted  is  Fannius  Strabo,  son-in-law  of  Lselius,  and 
for  a  time  active  partisan  of  the  Gracchi,  because  his 
work  included  a  full  account  of  his  own  troublous  times, 
Ccelius  Antipater,  author  of  a  monograph  on  the  second 
Punic  war,  by  fondness  for  dreams,  oracles,  and  marvels 
generally,  for  the  livelier  dialogue  form,  poetic  phrasing, 
etc.,  perhaps  shares  Herodotos's  influence,  and  in  turn 
affected  Livy.  Of  brief  autobiographical  sketches,  doubt- 
less really  political  pamphlets,  by  Gains  Gracchus  and 
others,  we  have  but  most  meagre  vestiges. 

Perhaps  most  of  all  do  we  lament  the  loss  of  the  Roman 
orators.  A  very  large  number  of  speeches  had  been  pre- 
served,we  know  not  how  faithfully,  beginning 
with  the  plea  of  Appius  Claudius  against 
peace  with  Pyrrhus.  It  would  surely  surprise  even  Cicero, 
who,  in  his  dialogue  "Brutus,"  has  left  us  the  best  his- 
torical sketch  of  civic  eloquence  in  Rome,  to  know  that  we 
can  no  longer  illustrate  it  by  a  single  complete  authentic 
speech  of  any  Roman  save  Cicero  himself. 

The  scanty  fragments  perhaps  justify  Cicero's  judgment, 
that  the  greatest  of  all  was  the  younger  of  the  two  mar- 
Qaius  Qracchus,    tyred  Gracclii,  the  generous  champions  of 

1 121  B.C.  ^j^g  landless  folk.     The  position  of  this  fear- 

less hero  of  a  hopeless  cause  was  most  striking.  His  early 
doom  was  clearly  before  his  eyes.       "  He  related  to  many 


LOST    WORKS   AND    AUTHORS  63 

that,  when  he  hesitated  to  seek  his  first  public  office,  his 
brother  Tiberius  in  a  dream,  said  to  him,  *he  might  resist 

Cicero  de  ^^  ^^^  vvould  ;   yet  he  would  die  even  as  he 

Divinatione,         himself  had  perished.' "  The  same  fatalism  is 

I.,  26,  56.  heard  in  his  burning  words  :  "  Whither  shall 

I  turn  in  my  misery  ?  To  the  Capitol  ?  It  drips  with 
my  brother's  blood.  To  my  home  ?  To  see  my  wretched 
mother  lamenting  and  bowed  to  earth  ?  "  A  poet's  pictu- 
resque simplicity  wings  a  patriot's  scorn,  when  he  cries  : 
**  0  Quirites,  now  that  I  have  come  to  Rome,  the  money- 
belts  which  I  carried  forth  full,  I  have  brought  back  from 
ray  province  empty  :  the  great  Jars  that  others  carried  out 
filled  with  wine,  they  fetched  home  again  overflowing  with 
money." 

But  even  this  masterful  voice  reaches  us  only  in  a  few 
such  ringing  words.  We  turn  from  dim  twilight  of  sur- 
mise into  sudden  and  blazing  day  :  to  the  best-known  age 
and  life,  possibly,  in  all  human  annals. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For  a  fuller  treatment  of  most  subjects  in  this  chapter  we  can  best 
refer  the  English  reader  to  Sellar,  and  to  the  translation  of  Mommsen. 
There  is  an  extraordinarily  clear  and  graphic  "  RUckblick  "  in  Schanz, 
pp.  123-25.  The  noble  character  of  the  Gracchi,  particularly  of 
Gaius,  should  be  studied  not  only  in  the  general  histories,  but  in  the 
more  sympathetic  pages  of  Plutarch.  Their  failure  was  doubtless  in- 
evitable, but  they  saw  aright  the  fatal  danger.  For  Lucilius  all 
special  students  should  refer  to  the  exhaustive  edition  of  the  frag- 
ments by  Lucian  Miiller. 


OHRONOLOOIOAL    TABLES. 


509-100  B.C. 

Political  Events. 

Literary  Events. 

B,C. 

B.C. 

509 

Consuls  first  elected. 

509 

Treaty  between  R 

488  Coriolanus     retreats      from 

before  Rome. 
454  Three  men  Bent  to    Greece 

to    collect    laws     (Livy, 

iii.,41). 
451-450   The  Decemvirs    in  power. 
396  Camillus  conquer b  'Veii. 

390  Rome    sacked    and  burned 

by  the  Gauls. 


339-338  Latin  cities  conquered. 
321  Defeat     of      Romans      by 

Samnites      at       Caudine 

Forks. 
313  Aj^pius    Claudius,  as  cen- 

».     sor,  begins  Appian   Way 

and    Claudian    aqueduct. 
290  End   of  Samnite   wars. 

280-272   War    with    Tarentum  and 

King  Pyrrhus. 


266  Italy      completely       under 

Romjin  rule. 
264-241   First  Punic    War,   chiefly 

about  Sicily. 
241  Sicily  a  Roman  province. 


Carthage  (Polyb.,  iii.,  22). 
493  Treaty     with    the     Latins 

(Dionys.,    vi.,    95;  Livy, 
ii.,  33). 


451-450  Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
promulgated. 


364 


280 


272 


Etrurian    actors    appear  at 
the  Ludi  Momani. 


Speech  of  Appius  Claudius 
against  peace  with    Pyr- 


rhus. 
Livi 


ivius  Andronicus  brought 
to  Rome  a  slave,  from 
Tarentum. 


64 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLES 


65 


Political  Events. 


B.C. 


218-203  Second  Punic  War. 
Hannibal   in   Italy. 
217  Trasimenus. 
216  Cannae. 
207  Hasdrubal's  army  destroyed. 


204  Scipio  invades  Africa. 


B.C. 

240 


207 


204 


Literary  Events. 

Tragedy  and  comedy  pre- 
sented by  Andronicus 
(Livy,  vii.,  2). 


AndronicuH's  hymn  of  in- 
tercession sung  in  public. 

Authors'  guild  founded. 

On.  Naevius,  author  of  Epic 
on  Punic  War,  tragedies, 
comedies,    etc.    (t204). 

Quintus  Fabius  Pictor,  ear- 
liest Roman  historian, 
wrote  in  Greek  (circa  225 

B.C.). 

Cato       brings    Ennius      to 

Rome. 
Ennius,    epic    poet,  drama- 
tist, etc.  (+169). 
P  1  a  u  t  u  B,   comedy-writer 

(+184). 
Cfecilius,  comedy-writer 

(tcirca  168). 
Cato,         historian,       orator 

(+149) . 
Pacuvius,       tragic      author 

(+circa  130  B.C.). 
Terence,  author  of  comedies 

(185-159  B.C.). 


190 

Crushing     defeat    of  Anti- 

ochuB  of  Syria. 

188 

Death  of   Africanus,    Han- 
nibal,   and    Philopoimen. 

168 

Conquest  of  Macedonia. 

167 

Thousand    Greek  hostages, 
including  Polybios,  taken 
to  Rome. 

166-160   Terence's     comedies      ex- 
hibited. 
Lucilius,  Satirist    (180-103 
B.C.). 

149-146  Third  Punic  War. 


66 


THE   REPUBLICAN   AGE 


RC. 
146 


133 


134 


Political  Events. 

Destruction  of  Carthage 
and  Corinth.  Africa> 
Macedonia,  Greece,  Ro- 
man provinces. 


Literary  Events. 


B.C. 


145 


Africanus 
Numantia 


de- 


in 


of 


Younger 
stroys 
Spain. 
Tribunate   and    murder 

Tiberius   Gracchus. 
Galus       Gracchus     returns 
from    Sardinia,     and     is 
elected  tribune. 
131  Death   of  Gaius  Gracchua. 

113-106  War  with  Jugurtha. 

105  Gladiatorial  contests  made 

a  state  festival. 

103-101  Marius  destroys  the  Teu- 
tons and  Cimbri. 


Theatre, with  wooden  seats, 
erected  by  Mummius. 


106 


At  tins  (or  Accius),   author 
of  tragedies  (170-90  B.C.). 
Birth  of  Cicero. 


BOOK   II 
THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

(100-43  B.C.) 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   TIME   AND   THE   MAN 

When  the  younger  Africanns,  returning  from  his  great 
campaign  in  Spain,  heard  that  his  noble  kinsman,  Tibe- 
Faii  of  Numantia,  ^'i^^s  Gracchus,  had  perished  in  the  attempt 
133  B.C.  ^Q  wrest  the  public  lands  from  the  oligarchy 

and  the  "rings,"  to  restore  the  sturdy  type  of  free  farmer 
in  Latium  and  Italy  generally, — he  showed  his  Hellenic 
culture,  and  the  short-sighted  views  of  his  caste,  by  quot- 
ing the  verse  uttered,  in  the  Homeric  Olympos,  on  the 
death  of  the  dastard  Aigisthos  : 

Odyssey,  "  ^^  may  another  perish,  whoever  does    such 

1.,  vs.  47.  deeds." 

A  quarter-century  more,  and  the  decay  of  national  charac- 
ter appeared  all  but  fatal.  Jugurtha's  exclamation  "^  A  city 
saiiust,  Jugur-  ^^Y  salc  "  Seemed  prophetic.  He  himself  for 
tha,  §  35  ad  fin.  years,  and  Mithridates,  in  the  next  genera- 
tion, for  decades,  bribed,  cajoled,  or  terrified  Roman  com- 
manders and  armies.  The  Roman  dominion  seemed  ready 
to  drop  to  pieces  like  the  Macedonian  empire. 

But  perhaps  the  elder  cultured  races  were  too  broken 
in  spirit  to  reassert  themselves.  The  resistless  move- 
ment of  our  barbarian  ancestors  from  the  North  into 
Mediterranean  lands  was  not  to  begin  in  earnest  for  ages. 
Above  all,  even  in  that  century  of  constant  civic  turmoil, 
Rome  produced  a  series  of  commanders  so  great,  that  even 
lier  selfish  and  murderous  factions  still  ruled  the  provinces 
with  merciless  strength,  and  finally  handed  on  to  Augustus 
far  more  lands  and  revenues  than  the  Scipionic  age  had 

69 


70  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

dreamed  of  winning.  Marius  crushed  Jugurtlui,  and  cut 
to  pieces  the  mighty  vanguard  of  invading  Teutons  and 
Celts.  Pompey  comjoleted  Sulhi's  Eastern  conquests,  de- 
stroyed Mithridates,  added  many  provinces  in  the  Orient. 
Caesar  Romanized  the  chief  Keltic  lands,  and  made  the 
legionary  eagles  known  and  dreaded  on  the  Thames,  on  the 
Rhine,  even  for  a  day's  march  into  the  forests  of  uncon- 
querable Germany. 

The  same  marvellous  age  produced  the  two  Roman  poets 
who  show,  in  diverse  fields,  creative  genius  of  the  highest 
order,  and  also  the  greatest  master  of  prose  style, — if  he 
Why  the  age  of  TO'T-J  be  judged  by  his  influence  on  after- 
cicero?  times, — that  ever  lived.     The  forensic  elo- 

quence, in  particular,  of  five  modern  languages,  including 
our  own,  in  words,  phrases,  and  spirit,  is  full  of  Tullian 
echoes.  Castelar,  Cavour,  Gambetta,  Gladstone,  Everett, 
are  alike  fully  conscious  of  Ciceronian  influence.  Julius 
Offisar,  in  the  world  of  action  perhaps  the  mightiest  strate- 
gist and  organizer  that  ever  lived,  was  not  even  a  close  sec- 
ond in  the  field  of  literature.  In  this  volume,  then,  the 
age  of  the  giants,  the  age  of  turbulent  transition  from 
republic  to  empire,  is  clearly  the  epoch  of  Cicero. 

His  public  life  and  character  we  can  touch  only  so  far  as 
they  aid  to  interpret  his  chief  writings,  particularly  his 
orations.  He  certainly  seems  out  of  place  in  that  age  of 
violent  force.  Sharing  with  Pompey  the  old-fashioned 
purity  and  love  of  family  ties,  Cicero  also  felt,  even  for 
provincials,  the  humanity  which  Caesar  limited  to  Romans, 
though  including  in  it  his  deadliest  personal  enemies. 
Cicero's  extraordinary  vanity  and  self-consciousness,  though 
a  source  of  weakness  in  all  relations,  was  doubly  fatal  in 
political  action.  Yet  he  was  a  true  patriot,  eager  to  sur- 
pass his  ideal  prototype  Demosthenes,  and  with  a  far  more 
bewildering  path  of  duty  before  him. 

The  well-to-do  middle  class  from  which  Cicero  sprang 


THE  TIME   AND  THE  MAN  71 

was  itself  vanishing.  He  himself,  like  Pompey,  was  pushed 
upward  by  official  honors  into  the  senatorial  and  olgiar- 
chical  faction  which  called  itself  the  republic.  But  the 
future  belonged  to  the  mob,  to  the  masterly  Julius  who 
dominated  it,  to  the  cold-blooded  young  Octavian  who 
gathered  all  essential  powers  into  his  own  hands, 

Cicero's  life  was  always  lonely.  Like  Dante  he  heartily 
admired  no  one,  even  in  his  own  little  faction,  save  him. 
self :  Brutus,  he  saw,  was  cruel  and  extortionate,  Cato 
truly  porcine  in  his  impracticable  stubbornness,  Sulpicius 
a  mere  dreaming  scholar,  Lucullus  an  indolent  epicure, 
etc.,  etc.  Worse  still,  it  was  all  essentially  true.  The  old 
forms  broke  down  because  there  was  no  one  competent  to 
work  them.  Caesar's  dictatorship  was  a  necessity,  his  mur- 
der a  crime.  Twenty  months  of  chaos,  terrible  bloodshed, 
and  a  harsher  despotism,  were  the  chief  results.  If  this, 
the  prevailing  view,  be  a  true  one,  Cicero's  public  career 
was  a  foreordained  tragedy,  his  death  a  costly  but  necessary 
assurance  of  peace. 

He  was  hampered  in  certain  crises,  too,  by  a  form  of 
cowardice  which  may  have  been  purely  physical.  His 
hasty  flight  when  threatened  by  Clodius,  his  lachrymose 
complainings  in  exile,  are  abundantly  characterized  in  his 
own  letters.  He  dared  not  let  the  Catilinarian  leaders  live 
overnight,  he  applauded  and  defended  the  murder  of  his 
personal  enemy  Clodius  by  Milo,  an  equally  lawless  bravo, 
he  refused  the  leadership  of  the  Pompeians,  was  the  first 
to  make  abject  submission  to  Csesar,  was  not  intrusted  with 
the  secrets  of  Brutus's  conspirators,  yet  rejoiced  effusively 
in  the  deed  of  the  Ides.  These  are  verdicts  passed  by  the 
man  himself,  or  those  who  knew  him  best,  not  to  be 
reversed  at  this  late  day. 

Perhaps  the  severest  chance  that  has  befallen  him  is  the 
preservation  of  his  confidential  letters,  exposing  every  hesi- 
tation, turning  the  flash-light  of  publicity  on  every  petty 


f^2  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

and  selfish  motive.  Few  indeed  of  the  world's  heroes  could 
pass  such  scrutiny  unscathed.  Hardly  one,  of  any  age,  is 
so  mercilessly  unveiled  to  our  eyes.  That  it  is  mainly  a 
self-revelation  makes  the  matter  no  better.  Possibly  his 
greatest  service  of  all  is  thus  to  exemplify  to  us  the  essen- 
tial oneness,  the  extreme  humanness,  of  all  men. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  bare  outlines  here  suggested  should  be  carefully  filled  up,  or  re- 
drawn Tliequestion  of  Cicero's  character  can  never  be  absolutely  de- 
ternnned.  The  present  writer  has  set  forth  his  beliefs  most  fully  in 
the  Sewanee  Review  for  July,  1900. 

The  most  adverse  view  is  taken  in  Professor  Mommsen  s  powerful 
volumes  Middleton's  "  Life  of  Cicero  "  is  still  valuable,  Forsyth  s  is 
better,  Boissier's  "  Ciceron  et  ses  Amis  "  is  yet  more  readable  and  up  to 
date,  but  the  serious  student  must  sit  down,  in  a  library  of  classical  au- 
thors, and  work  through  Drumann's  so-called  -  Geschichte  Roms, 
Vols   V   and  VI.,  with  their  exhaustive  references. 

The  best  library  edition  of  Cicero's  complete  works,  in  Latin,  with- 
out notes,  is  Baiter  and  Kayser's,  Tauchnitz,  in  eleven  volumes. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CICERO   AS   AN  ORATOR 

Of  the  personal  influences  that  led  Cicero  to  legal  and 
rhetorical  studies  he  accords  many  pleasant  glimpses,  e.g. 
at  the  beginning  of  the  "  De  Amicitia,"  and  much  more  co- 
piously in  the  "  De  Oratore,"  where  Antonius  and  Crassus  in 
particular  are  lovingly  portrayed.  It  is  true,  however,  that 
'in  Crassus  Cicero  is  often  describing  himself.  His  youth- 
ful relations  with  the  Greek  poet  Archias,  and  with  the 
venerable  Accius,  are  well  known.    Born,  like 

Cf.  supra,  p. 23.  ' 

his  kinsman  Marius,  at   Arpinum,   he   was 
carefully  educated  in  the  capital. 

His  first  public  appearance  seemed  courageous.  It  was 
toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of  terror  under  Sulla.  A  rich 
Umbrian  named  Eoscius  had  been  murdered 
in  Rome.  The  probable  culprits,  two  of  his 
kinsmen,  then  agreed  with  Chrysogonus,  an  all-jDOwer- 
f  ul  f  reedman  and  favorite  of  the  dictator,  to  put  the  victim's 
name  on  the  list  of  the  proscribed,  and  divide  his  confis- 
cated wealth.  When  Roscius's  young  son  resisted  this  sec- 
ond outrage,  he  was  himself  accused  of  parricide. 

No  other  lawyer  ventured  to  defend  the  innocent  youth, 
says  Cicero,  who  explains  his  own  daring  by  his  obscurity, 
but  seems  to  have  had  for  some  reason  powerful  protection 
in  Sulla's  own  circle.  Though  successful,  he  yet  spent 
the  next  years,  while  Sulla  lived,  travelling  in  Greece, 
"  for  his  health,"  as  he  himself  truthfully  explained.  The 
great  teacher,  Molon  of  Rhodes,  removed  at  this  time  from 
Cicero's  style   "  a  certain  Asiatic  floridness  and  overful- 

73 


0 


74  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

iiess  "  which  we  should  never  have  missed.  This  speech, 
Pro  Roscio  Ameriiio,  like  many  of  the  others,  betrays  later 
revision.  No  youth  could  have  said  to  Sulla's  face  :  "  Not 
merely  tlieliahit  of  mercy,  but  even  of  inquiry,  has  vanished 
from  the  commonwealth  in  these  clays." 

As  quajstor  in  Sicily  Cicero  became  the 

favorite,  and  future  champion,  of  the  op- 
pressed provincials.     His  rediscovery  of  Archiniedes's  tomb 

must  give  a  thrill  of  envy  to  any  true  ar- 
^*al,64^'  ^''    chaeologist.     His  humanity  was  genuine,  as 

his  hatred  of  gladiatorial  sports  indicates. 
The  impeachment  of  tlie  rapacious  Verres  was  creditable 
but  not  extremely  dangerous.     Since  Sulla's  death  the  old 

forms  had  been  restored  to  decent  activity. 

70  B.C.  -^ 

Ihe  case  was  a  notorious  scandal.  Cicero 
collected  an  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence  in  Sicily. 
After  the  preliminary  hearing  the  great  Hortensius  gave 
up  the  case,  while  Verres  hastened  into  exile.  The  five 
long  "books"  of  the  "second  action"  were  never  de- 
livered, but  as  published  they  throw  a  flood  of  light  on 
provincial  conditions.  This  case  at  once  made  Cicero  the 
leader  of  the  bar,  but  did  not  cost  him  Hortensius's  personal 
good-will.  A  lawyer  received  no  fee,  save  generous  pres- 
ents and  legacies,  but  the  way  to  civic  office  was  now 
open. 

This  was  the  year  of  Pompey's  first  consulship.  The 
two  acted  together  in  restoring  the  popular  tribunes,  re- 
admitting the  equites  to  sit  with  senators  on  such  cases  as 
Verres's,  in  general  in  strengthening  the  middle  class, 
which  Sulla  had  crushed.  This  personal  alliance  lasted 
some  years,  and  its  chief  monument  is  the  extravagant 
eulogy  called  Pro  lege  Manilia,  which  won 
for  Pompey  the  supreme  command  against 
Mithridates.  There  was  little  genuine  affection  on  either 
side.     On  the  other  hand,  a  real  congeniality,  a  mutual 


CICERO    AS   AN    ORATOR  75 

charm,  always  bound  together  Cf^sar  and  Cicero,  whose 
political  plans  never  ran  parallel. 

The  year  of  Cicero's  consulate  carried  him  quite  over 
into  the  aristocratic  party.  In  January  he  was  still  "not 
63  B.C.  ^   consul  who,  like  most,  think  it  a  sin  to 

De  Lege  Agraria,  praisc  the  Gracchi."     In  November,   in  the 

''■'^*  harangues    against    Catiline,  he    cited    the 

heroic  brothers  repeatedly  among  the  notorious  traitors, 
justly  slain,  of  earlier  days.  The  hatred  and  fear  of 
Catiline,  with  whom  the  democratic  leaders,  even  Ca?sar, 
appear  to  have  been  somewhat  implicated,  the  personal  ad- 
vances of  the  old  nobles,  the  excessive  confidence  in  his  own 
position  Q.?,  2mter  patrim,  may  all  have  aided  this  change. 

The  four  speeches  ''against  Catiline"  are  vivid  and 
sufficiently  authentic  memorials  of  this  proud  epoch  in  the 
orator's  career,  but  have  been  elaborated  and  polished  in 
later  years.  The  extravagant  and  abusive  marshalling  of 
In    Cat.,  i\.        Catiline's   host   is   the  least  pleasing.     The 

passim.,  third  speech  is  tlie  happiest,  and  of  it  the 

Cf.  supra,  p.  53.  three  first  and  last  sentences  should  be  per- 
fectly familiar  to  every  student.  The  clear,  copious  style, 
the  resonant  periodic  structure,  even  the  frank  self-con- 
sciousness, are  perfectly  characteristic  of  all  Ciceronian 
expression.  There  is  a  rhythm,  also,  which  all  can  hear 
and  recognize,  even  a  verse-effect  in 

Fortunatissimam  pulcherrimamque  tirhem, 
Deorum  immortalium  summo  erga  vos  amore, 
Laboi'ibus  consiliis  periculisque  meis. 

There  is  nothing  better  in  its  kind.  No  imitator  has 
surpassed  or  can  surpass  the  master.  Self-conscious,  elab- 
orated rhetoric  it  still  remains.  But  eloquence  has 
higher  possibilities.  In  Demosthenes,  Burke,  Webster,  we 
have  passages  where  art  either  effaces  itself,  or  is  really 
lost  in  the   volcanic  utterance  of  the   heart.     Lincoln's 


76  THE   CICERONIAN"   AGE 

Gettysburg  speech,  jotted  hastily,  it  is  said,  upon  an  odd 
scrap  of  paper  and  thrown  away  after  delivery,  is  hickily 
preserved  to  us  by  a  stenographer's  notes.  Lincoln  was 
quite  unaware  that  he  had  created  an  eternal  masterpiece. 
Cicero,  too,  may  well  liave  risen  to  sucli  outbursts  :  but  if 
so,  lie  has  himself  refined  and  polished  them  out  of  sight 
in  the  revision. 

The  most  dexterous  and  witty  plea  of  the  eventful  year 
came  late  in  November.  Murena,  a  rough,  fearless  soldier, 
had  been  elected  consul  for  62.  Bribery  of  the  rabble 
voters  seems  to  have  been  even  more  general  and  shameless 
than  usual.  The  noble  and  scholarly  jurist  Sulpicius,  a 
defeated  candidate  for  whom  Cicero  himself  had  labored, 
brought  suit  to  invalidate  the  election.  But  Catiline  was 
in  arms  in  Etruria.  The  times  demanded  a  man  of  action. 
A  new  election  might  even  mean  a  radical  success,  or  a 
fatal  interregnum. 

So  Cicero  accepted  a  brief  for  Murena,  and  won.  He  ap- 
parently, even,  saved  his  personal  friendship  with  Sulpicius, 
whom  he  lived  to  eulogize  splendidly  after  death,  in  the 
ninth  Philippic.  Even  young  Cato,  on  whom  Cicero  also 
showered  ridicule  because  he  appeared  as  Sulpicius's  advo- 
cate, only  remarked  with  the  harsh  smile  of  his  great- 
grandsire  :  "  AVhat  a  buffoon  our  consul  is  I"  There  is 
indeed  much  effective  jesting  on  the  forms  of  legal  pro- 
cedure, and  on  the  affectations  of  philosophers.  But 
Sulpicius  was  the  greatest  jurist,  Cato  the  most  heroic, 
consistent  Stoic  of  their  day  :  and  no  man  appreciated 
them  more  adequately  than  Cicero. 

The  "  Pro  Archia  Poeta  "  is  a  deserving  favorite.  The 
political,  even  the  legal  element,  is  small,  and  lias  prob- 
ably been  abridged  by  the  author.  The  pre- 
vailing tone  is  sincere  and  tender.  While 
nominally  pleading  the  cause  of  his  old  teacher,  whose 
Roman  citizenship  had  been  questioned,  Cicero  expresses 


CICERO    AS    AN    ORATOR  77 

his  gratitude  to  Greek  artists  in  general,  and  that  delight 
in  letters  which  is  the  "  common  link^'  among  scholars  of 
every  age  and  land.  It  is  by  such  utterances  that  Cicero 
has  won  the  lasting  affection,  if  not  the  unqualified  admira- 
tion, of  all  who  love  literature  and  share  in  philosophic 
thought.  Yet  the  orator  really  cared  little  for  Archias, 
who  was,  in  fact,  a  rather  clever  Greek  rhetorician. 

Cicero  was  undoubtedly  invited  to  join  the  little  political 
cabal  or  ring  misnamed  the  first  triumvirate.     His  hesita- 
tion, whether  due  to  vanity  or  patriotism, 
finally  led  Cfesar  to  push  Clodius  forward. 
The  bill  first  offered  by  Clodius  did  not  name  Cicero,  but 
outlawed   those  who   had  put  citizens   to  death  without 
trial.     Yet  the  application  to  the  Catilinarian  executions 
was  understood  by  all.     The  banishment  of 
Cicero,  brief   as   it  was,  clipped   his  wings 
permanently.      He  could  never  again   become  dangerous 
as  a  heroic  leader.     After  one  or  two  attempts  to  reassert 
himself  he  relapsed  into  rather  sullen   submission,  later 
even   defending    personal   enemies   at   the   suggestion  of 
Caesar  or  Pompey. 

Such  justification  as  could  be  made  for  this  policy  is  to 
be  sought  not,  naturally,  in  any  speech,  but  in  the  long 

g  ^  letter    to    Lentulus,   which    was    evidently 

Epist.  ad  Fam.,     meant  for  publication  as  an  Apologia.     At 

■'  '*  best  it  is  no  heroic  tale.     He  has  but  fol- 

lowed Pompey  ;  Caesar's  kindness  is  irresistible  :  the  aris- 
tocratic leaders  have  been  most  ungrateful  and  impracti- 
cable :  self-preservation  is  the  law  of  life.  Until  after 
Caesar's  death,  the  voice  of  Cicero  the  statesman  is  silenced. 
Yet  there  are  meantime  several  speeches  of  his  too  im- 
portant to  pass  over. 

In  his  defence  of  Caelius  Rufus,  who  had  been  a  lover  of 
the  notorious  Clodia,  probably  supplanting  the  poet  Catul- 
lus, the  lady   is  assailed  in   a   fashion   that   no   modern 


78  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

court-room  would  tolerate.  From  the  charges  of  having 
defrauded  Clodia,  aud  of  having  tried  to  poison  her, 
S6B.C.  Caelius  was    acquitted;    but  we  get  a  lurid 

Cf.  Infra,  p.  ii6.  glimpse  at  the  social  conditions.  Catiline, 
long  an  intimate  of  Caelius,  has  to  be  generously  white- 
washed :  and  here  Cicero  confesses  to  some  inconsistency 
with  the  fierce  diatribes  of  G3  B.C. 

The  speech  for  Milo  was  never  delivered.  Rome  was  in 
a  state  of  anarchy,  Caesar  being  in  Gaul,  and  Pompey  at 
home,  slowly  squandering  the  fame  of  his 
early  victories  by  his  supine  incompetence. 
The  uproar  even  at  the  trial  frightened  Cicero,  so  that  he 
broke  down  utterly.  Milo  in  exile  warmly  praised  the 
written  speech,  and  rejoiced  at  the  failure:  "  Else  I  should 
not  be  enjoying  the  mullets  of  Marseilles.^'' 

Still  less  pleasing  to  Cicero's  admirers  is  the  group  of 
clever  pleas  uttered  to  the  dictator  Caesar  by  the  most  il- 
lustrious, stately,  obsequious,  of  his  court- 
iers. For  him  who  would  stand  at  a  mon- 
arch's footstool  to  crave  his  clemency,  the  Pro  Marcello, 
Pro  Ligario,  etc.,  are  models  of  grace  and  skill. 

Most  heroic  of  all  epochs  in  this  varied  life  are  the  twenty 
months  between  Caesar's  murder  and  that  of  Cicero  him- 
self. The  contrast  with  Antony's  craft,  cruelty,  licen- 
tiousness, and  lawlessness,  made  the  cause  of  the  nobles 
seem  well  worth  fighting  for.  The  fury  of  the  strife  soon 
left  no  hope  of  any  choice  save  victory  or  death.  Cic- 
ero is  at  bay. 

The  second  and  greatest  of  the  "  Philippics,"  or  dia- 
tribes against  Antony,  was  never  delivered.  The  whole 
series  is  the  chief  source  of  knowledge  for  that  important 
period.  One  is  glad  indeed  to  hear  an  absolutely  frank 
and  fearless  voice  in  these  latter  days,  even  though  it  shares 
the  general  savagery  and  fury  of  civil  strife.  Cicero,  of 
course,  never  gave   to   these  harangues   a  calm,  painful 


CICEKO    AS   AN   ORATOR  79 

revision,  and  no  later  hand  appears  to  have  meddled  with 
them. 

The  political  judgment  of  the  patriotic  leaders  can  hardly 
be  admired.  That  Octavian,  intrusted  with  high  com- 
mand, would  turn  against  the  slayers  of  his  adoptive  father, 
might  surely  have  been  surmised.  To  Cicero's  death  he 
seems  to  have  consented  reluctantly.  Yet,  even  without 
the  furious  insistence  of  Antony,  Julius's  fate  might 
have  taught  the  cold-hearted,  long-sighted  youth  the  ne- 
cessity for  heroic  surgery.  Like  nearly  every  Roman, 
Cicero  died  bravely,  with  a  touch  of  tenderness  and  care 
for  his  servants,  at  the  very  last,  which  we  may  fairly  call 
Christian.  It  was  fortunate  that  he  did  not  linger  be- 
lated, on  the  changing  scene,  to  become  again  the  chief 
courtier  of  a  Caesar. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For  all  Cicero's  orations  there  is  a  creditable  edition,  with  English 
notes,  by  George  Long,  in  four  volumes  of  the  stately  "  Bibliotheca 
Classica."  The  "Philippics,"  or  speeches  against  Antony,  are  still 
better  elucidated  by  King  in  the  Clarendon  Press  Series.  School  edi- 
tions of  the  Catilinarians,  Archias,  Manilian,  and  a  few  others,  are 
numberless.  A  mature  student  should  take  in  hand  rather  Heitland's 
"  Pro  Murena,"  or  even  the  repellent  "  Pro  Cluentio  " — a  terrible  family 
poisoning  case,  reminding  us  of  Borgian  times  in  Italy — edited  by 
Ramsay. 

English  readers  will  find  the  Bohn  Cicero  fairly  good,  though  not 
comparable  with  Kennedy's  masterly  Demosthenes.  Cicero  is  easy 
to  understand,  very  hard  for  us  to  appreciate  as  a  stylist  or  to  trans- 
late aright.  Though  most  of  his  words  have  come  over  into  Eng- 
lish, they  meet  there  Saxon  synonyms,  and  so  are  apt  to  sound  turgid, 
needlessly  polysyllabic,  and  also  colorless  when  their  composition  is 
no  longer  self-evident.  Whatever  the  reason,  he  has  not  been  well 
translated. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  CICERONIAN   CORRESPONDENCE 

The  letters,  like  the  orations,  cover  most  of  Cicero's 
career,  and  are  a  precious  source  for  the  history  of  the 
times.  Much  less  than  the  orations,  however,  as  is  nat- 
ural, are  they  in  literary  form.  Especially  is  this  true  of 
the  most  valuable,  the  confidential  epistles  to  Atticus, 
never  meant  for  alien  eyes.  On  the  other  hand,  some 
Ad  Fam.,  I.,  9.  of  the  letters  to  other  friends,  like  that  to 
Supra,  p.  77.  Lentulus  already  mentioned,  are  political  or 
personal  pamphlets,  very  likely  manifolded  and  circulated 
more  or  less  widely  at  the  time,  as  a  statesman  now  gives 
Ad  Quintum  ^  personal  letter  to  the  reporters.  Even  a 
Fratrem.i.,  I.  genuine  brotherly  letter  to  Qnintus  Cicero 
may  contain  advice  and  warnings  to  a  provincial  governor 
almost  as  instructive  to  us  as  the  arraigning  of  Verres. 

Furthermore  these  eight  hundred  letters  are  by  no  means 
all  written  by  Cicero.  For  example,  in  the  collection  **  ad 
Familiares,"  the  entire  eighth  book  consists  of  Cselius's 
cynical,  gossipy  budgets  of  news  from  Rome  to  a  homesick 
friend  in  far  Cilicia.  Cfelius's  lawless  wit,  or  the  heavier 
dignity  of  Sulpicius,  varies  distinctly  from  Cicero's  own 
style,  which  again,  when  he  whispers  to  Atticus,  is  ellipti- 
cal, allusive,  interlarded  with  Greek,  sometimes  half  inar- 
ticulate for  fear  of  his  own  carrier's  treachery  :  but  stately, 
periodic,  in  full  dress,  while  he  justifies  himself  painfully 
to  Lentulus  and  to  us. 

It  is  needless  to  argue  in  detail  the  many-sided  value  and 
interest   of    this   great   collection,    which    sets   forth   the 

80 


THE    CICERONIAN    CORRESPONDENCE  81 

private  life  of  Roman  gentlemen  as  no  other  documents 
could  do.  Sometimes  the  briefest  enclosure  seems  most 
happily  chosen  to  throw  a  clear  light  on  character.  Thus 
Cicero  returning  from  Cilicia,  full  of  pride  over  some 
skirmishes  with  mountain  tribes,  hopeful  even  of  a  tri- 
umph, finds  the  Roman  world  convulsed,  on  the  edge 
of  civil  war,  and  hesitates  long  between  Pompey  and 
Caesar. 

The  former's  summons  is  as  gruff  as  a  corporaFs  to  a 
AdAtt.  vHi..        raw  recruit :    "^  I  decide  you  should  join  us 
^^  ^-  at  Luceria ;  for  I  think  you  will  be  safest 

there."  No  word  more,  save  the  curtest  facts  as  to  move- 
ments of  troops.  Caesar,  amid  the  same  turmoil,  sends  at 
least  three  letters,  each  a  little  masterpiece,  displaying  that 
gracious  tact  and  keen  perception  of  character  by  which 
he  swayed  all  who  came  within  his  reach.  He  begs  that 
he  may  see  Cicero,  ''  to  avail  myself  of  your  judgment, 
AdAtticum,  ix.,  yoi-^r  influence,  your  position  and  your  as- 
^'  ^-  sistance,  in  all  that  concerns  me."     ,     .     . 

*'To  find  my  conduct  approved  by  you  is  a  triumph  of 
AdAtticum.ix.,  gratification."  "What  more  suitable  part 
6.  Ibid.  X.,  8,  B.  ig  there  for  a  peace-loving  man,  and  a  good 
citizen,  than  to  hold  aloof  from  civil  dissensions?"  This 
is  his  final  plea,  as  Cicero's  veering  sail  fills  on  the  other 
tack  at  last. 

Another  charm  in  these  letters  is  the  tone  of  kindly 
amenity,  of  good-fellowship,  of  tenderness  even,  among 
those  of  whom  we  else  might  think  as  in  constant  strife, 
so  troublous  is  the  age  as  a  whole.  Most  admired,  per- 
haps, of  the  letters  is  one  written  by  Sulpi- 
AdFam..iv.,s.  cius,  from  Athens,  on  the  death  of  Tullia, 
Cicero  s  only  daughter  and  chief  comfort. 
Another  epistle  of  nearly  the  same  date  by  the  same  hand, 
giving  a  graphic  account  of  Marcellus's  death,  is  curiously 
different  in  style,  though  both  are  models.     Indeed,  the 


82  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

number  of  Romans  who  wrote  witli  perfect  ease,  clear- 
ness, and  simplicity  was  evidently  great.  But  Cicero 
himself  is,  of  course,  supreme,  and  has  in 
fact  exercised  ever  since  his  day  a  dominant 
influence  over  letter-writing,  cultivated  as  a  fine  art,  with 
an  eye  on  posterity. 

Among  Cicero's  correspondents  three  men  are  most  con- 
n.  Junius  Bru-      stantly  mentioned,  who  may  perhaps  best  be 
tu8,  85-43        briefly  discussed  here.     Brutus  phiys  so  large 
a  part  in  the  tragic  scene  of  the  Ides,  and  in 
the  Shakespearean  play,  that  his  name  at  least  is  to  all  men 
familiar.     The  question  whether  he  was  actually  Caesar's 
son   is  a  curious  chapter   of  the  chronique  scandaleuse, 
which  we  can  hardly  unseal  even  if  we  would.     His  im- 
portance as  an  orator  has  been  touched  upon  elsewhere. 
His  character  is  still  under  debate.     One  side  of  it  is  inde- 
Epist.  ad  Att.,     fensible,  for  Cicero  refers  in  great  indigna- 
V.,  ai ;  vi.,  a.   ^Jq^   q^^^   evident   sincerity   to  his  friend's 
rapacity,    cruelty,   and   lawlessness   in   his  relations  with 
provincials. 

Atticus  might  be  reckoned  among  the  historians,  as 
his  chief  work  was  a  chronological  table  of  events  for 
^'~'  ,         fully    seven    centuries,    from   the   founding 

T.   Pomponlus  .  •'  .  '^ 

Atticus,  109-     of   Rome   to   about   50    B.C.      The    magis- 
3a  B.C.  trates'  names   were  entered  in   a    form    to 

"^^^Atti'  s"'  **'  ^^^  ^^^^  tracing  of  kinship.  In  general  At- 
ticus was  an  enthusiast  in  genealogy,  and 
wrote  special  treatises  on  the  "trees"  of  various  leading 
families.  As  an  antiquarian  he  was  quite  overshadowed  by 
Varro,  and  his  largest  usefulness  was  perhaps  as  a  pub- 
lislier.  Th:ii  is,  he  employed  a  large  force  of  slaves  in  copy- 
ing  manuscripts  for  sale.  To  liini  might  1)0  attributed  in 
part  the  preservation  of  Cicero's  work.  Even  the  disappear- 
ance of  his  own  letters  might  be  explained  by  the  caution 
of  a  man  who  managed  to  maintain  cordial  friendship  alike 


THE   CICERONIAN   CORRESPONDENCE  83 

with  Pompey  and  Caesar,  Brutus  and  Mark  Antony,  and 
who  spent  his  old  age  under  the  rule  of  Cicero's  murderers. 
But  Atticus's  harmless  antiquarian  works  have  all  vanished 
too. 

Quintus  Cicero,  a  harsh  and  headstrong  man,  is  distinctly 
a  minor  figure  in  literature.  His  one  extant  book,  or 
Q.  Tuiiius  cice-  pamphlet,  offers  advice  to  his  elder  brother  on 
dJ"' p^titkfnf    '^^^6   ^^^   o^   candidacy   for    office.     Quintus 

Consuiatus.  w^as  Unhappily  married  to  Atticus's  sister,  and 
some  of  the  most  human  pages  of  the  correspondence  touch 
upon  their  domestic  quarrels.  Quintus,  and  his  only  son, 
shared  Marcus's  fate  in  43  B.C. 

Many  striking  figures  appear  less  frequently  in  the  let- 
ters. Some  of  them  arouse  a  strong  desire  for  a  fuller 
acquaintance.  Perhaps  the  finest  antithesis  to  the  witty, 
dissolute,  and  unprincipled  Caelius  is  a  certain  Matins,  a 
life-long  friend  of  Cicero,  who  in  May,  44,  writes  a  single 
letter  of  proud  self-defence.  He  had  loved  Cassar ;  the 
AdPamii.,  xi.,     man,  not  the  politician;  he  will  not  be  re- 

^*-  strained  from  frank  expression  of  his  grief. 

He  hopes  to  spend  his  last  days  peacefully  in  Rhodes  :  but 
**  No  peril  has  such  terrors  as  to  deter  me  from  gratitude 
or  humanity."  He  had  openly  disapproved  Caesar's  inva- 
sion of  the  fatherland.  He  will  now  fearlessly  deplore  his 
murder. 

The  young  Cato  is  much  oftener  mentioned,  and  writes 
one  rather  able  letter,  but  hardly  appears  at  all  in  Roman 
Ad  Famii.,  xv.,     literature  as  an  author.     Plutarch  knew  one 

*•  speech  of  his,  that  against  Catiline's  accom- 

plices :  yet  this  may  have  been  Sallust's  elaborate  composi- 
tion. Cato  was  the  great-grandson  of  the  famous  censor, 
and  a  certain  wilful  self-assertion  and  crudeness  of  temper 
seemed  an  heirloom  in  the  house.  As  Caesar  complained, 
he  was  excessively  fortunate  in  his  spectacular  death.  Hard 
pressed   by   the  dictator's  troops,  he  shut  himself  up  in 


84  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

Utica,  and  when  the  town  was  doomed  to  fall,  after  read- 
ing Plato  all  night,  calmly  stabbed  himself.  Caesar  craved 
the  luxury  of  pardoning  such  a  man. 

Sulpicius  Rufus,  already  referred  to,  was  the  chief  jurist 
and  codifier  of  law  in  his  generation,  the  true  successor  to 
that  Mucins  Scsevola  under  whom  Cicero  began  his  legal 
studies.  The  best  lawyers  of  the  next  generation  were  in 
this  period  accounted  Sulpicius's  pupils.  In  contrast  with 
Quintiiian,  lo,  his  One  hundred  and  eighty  learned  books, 
7>  30.  chiefly  legal,  his  three   orations  praised  by 

Quintiiian  were  forgotten. 

This  list,  which  might  be  greatly  extended,  is  offered 
merely  to  illustrate  the  vivid  though  insufficient  light 
thrown  on  many  lives,  and  on  the  general  life  of  the  age, 
by  these  priceless  letters. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  letters  have  received  extraordinary  attention  of  late  years. 
There  were  four  different  collections,  Cicero  to  and  from  his  family 
and  various  friends  sixteen  books,  to  Quintus  Cicero  three,  to  Atticus 
sixteen,  and  a  series  to  and  from  Brutus.  The  arrangement  is  not 
chronological.  Many  dates  are  lacking,  and  not  all  can  be  sujjplied 
from  the  contents. 

A  complete  edition  with  notes  is  edited  by  Professor  R.  Y.  Tyrrell, 
and  Professor  Shuckburgh  has  also  undertaken  a  translation  of  the 
entire  series.  Anotlior  highly  useful  pair  of  books  is  the  annotated 
edition  of  148  selected  letters,  illustrating  the  political  career  of  Cicero, 
by  Watson,  and  a  very  spirited  translation  of  the  same  epistles  by 
Jeans.  In  this  particular  field  the  young  English  student  is  better 
served  than  the  German. 

The  teacher  should  supplement  this  chapter  by  readings  from  Jeans 
or  Shuckburgh.  On  Atticus'e  life,  Nepos  is  our  chief  authority,  on 
Cato  and  Brutus  Plutarch  should  be  read. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  RHETORICAL  WORKS 

Of  all  the  essays  on  rhetoric  and  oratory  found  among 
Cicero's  works,  indeed  of  all  the  Latin  books  on  this  sub- 
ject, the  most  practical,  well-proportioned,  and  directly 
useful  is  a  volume  demonstrably  not  his,  dedicated  to  a 
Marius,  t86         Certain  Herennius.     It  was  composed  by  a 

^■^-  partisan  of  Marius,  shortly  after  the  great 

leader's  death.  Quintilian,  quoting  from  it  repeatedly, 
names  as  the  author  Cornificius.  He  seems  to  have  been  a 
man  of  bold  public  character,  frank,  vigorous  speech,  and 
earnest  convictions.  The  technical  nomenclature  was,  he 
claims,  largely  created  by  him,  and  was  adopted  in  all  later 
manuals.  His  examples  are  chosen  largely  from  recent 
speeches,  and  reveal  his  own  warm  partisanship.  Espe- 
Ad  Herennium,     cially  fine  is  the  indignant  yet  picturesque  ac- 

Jv.,  55-  count,  quoted  from  an  unknown  source,  of 

Tiberius  Gracchus's  murder. 

This  essay,  though  a  technical  manual  based  on  Greek 
originals,  is  really  a  creditable  piece  of  literary  work.  At 
the  close  the  grave  Roman  sense  of  proportion,  the  con- 
sciousness of  rank,  of  a  career,  of  large  duties,  reduces  the 
whole  treatise  to  its  proper  sphere  :  "  We  have  other  and 
better  aims,  which  we  pursue  in  life  far  more  strenuously, 
so  that  even  if,  in  oratory,  we  attain  not  what  we  would, 
yet  only  a  minor  part  of  a  most  complete  life  will  be  lack- 
ing." This  alone  suffices  to  show  that  it  is  not  Cicero  who 
speaks. 

Cicero's  own  youthful  essay  in  two  books,  known  as  the 

85 


86  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

"  Ue  Inventione,"  discussing  the  materials  of  the  rhetori- 
cian's art  only,  is  confessedly  incomplete.  It  is  a  very  im- 
mature performance,  and  often  copies  verbatim  from  the 
master-work  just  described,  which  had  then  recently  ap- 
peared. 

The  "  De  Oratore,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  most  sus- 
tained and  elaborate  attempt  ever  made  by  Cicero  to  imitate 
De  Oratore,  pub-   the  Plutonic   dialogue-form.     Dramatic,  in- 

lished  55  B.C.  (Jecd,  he  could  never  be,  for  self-effacement  is 
with  him  impossible.  Though  embittered  somewhat  by  his 
exile,  and  cut  off  from  real  activity  in  politics,  Cicero  had 
not  then  met  the  worst  humiliations  of  his  life.  He  was  at 
the  full  maturity  of  his  powers.  He  is  writing  with  care, 
at  his  leisure,  on  his  chief  subject  of  life-long  interest. 
The  scene  is  set  in  September  of  the  year  91  B.C.,  at  a  villa 
in  the  beautiful  region  about  Tusculum.  Antonius,  Crassus, 
and  the  other  masters  of  eloquence  who  appear  in  the  dia- 
logue, were  really  known  personally  to  the  precocious  boy 
Cicero,  down  to  the  tragic  death  of  most  of  them  in  the 
reign  of  terror  under  Marius  and  Ciuna.  The  high  ideal  of 
oratory,  as  a  civic  need,  reminds  one  of  Cato's  definition, 
that  the  orator  is  "a  good  man  speaking."  If  all  the 
characters  talk  much  alike,  it  is  partly  because  all  Romans 
thought  alike  on  such  themes. 

The  elaborate  setting  of  the  dialogue  gives  a  pleasant 
picture  of  elegant  life  in  the  suburban  villas.  Though 
Cicero  was  rash  to  challenge  comparison  with  the  famous 
De  Oratore,  i.,      discussiou   bctwcen    Pliaidros  and   Socrates 

7>  ^8.  under  the  plane-tree  on  the  river-bank,  he  at 

least  quite  holds  his  own  with  Xenophon's  rustic  scene  and 
dialogue  in  the  "  Oiconomicos."  As  a  whole  the  work  is 
diffuse,  because  constant  effort  is  made  to  break  and 
lighten  the  technical  passages  by  incidental  illustration  or 
by-play  :  yet  the  whole  ground  of  rhetoric  is  fairly  gov. 
ered. 


THE   RHETORICAL   WORKS  87 

In  a  passage  clearly  marked  as  a  digression,  the  subject 
of  humor  and  wit  is  intrusted  as  it  were  to  a  specialist, 
De  Orat.,  ii.,  54,   C«sar    Strabo.      The   examples   quoted  are 
^'^  "•  largely  savage   retorts   of  lawyers  or  politi- 

cians. Thus,  to  cite  the  first  case,  Catulus,  whose  name 
means  puppy,  had  raised  his  voice  in  debate.  When  his 
opponent  said  :  "  Why  do  you  bark?"  the  answer  came 
back  :  "Because  I  see  a  thief  I"  So  a  stubborn  man,  a 
fourth  son,  is  told,  "  If  your  mother  should  bear  a  fifth,  it 
would  be  an  ass."  But  Roman  wit  in  general  is  both 
heavy  and  sardonic. 

The  reader's  interest  flags  somewhat  before  the  three 
days'  conversation  ends  :  unless  he  is  making  a  thorough 
study  of  the  most  copious,  lucid,  graceful,  Latin  style  ever 
attained.  In  this,  as  in  all  his  larger  essays,  Cicero  creates  a 
goodly  number  of  technical  Latin  words  to  match  familiar 
Greek  terms. 

The  whole  work  is  dedicated  to  the  author's  younger 
brother  Quintus,  who  had  held  that  oratory,  like  poetry, 
is  a  matter  of  innate  power.  Marcus  regards  it  rather 
as  a  final  consummate  result  of  all  liberal  study  and 
training.  The  early  "  De  Inventione"  is 
mentioned,  only  to  be  dismissed  as  boyish, 
incomplete,  and  unworthy.  Altogether,  this  is  the  most 
important  of  all  Cicero's  essays. 

In  the  "  Brutus,"  under  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between 

Pomponius  Atticus,  Cicero  himself,  and  the  young  tyran- 

Brutus,  publish-  uicidc,     wc  liavc  an    excellent  brief  sketch 

ed  46  B.C.         of  the  rise  and  progress  of  Roman  oratory. 

The  living  masters  of  eloquence  are  as  a  rule  passed  over, 
yet  three  or  four  are  discussed,  while  the  chief  speaker 
coyly  yields  to  his  friends'  persistence,  and  reviews  his  own 
laborious  attainment  of  perfection.  Some  curious  details 
even  of  his  youthful  figure,  mannerisms,  etc.,  are  included. 
This  essay  is  quite  indispensable,  as  an  liistoric  sketch,  but 


88  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

there  is  an  utter  and  deplorable  lack  of  material  to  illus- 
trate it.  Even  such  imperial  figures  as  the  elder  Cato  and 
Gaius  Gracchus  are  now  dim  and  all  but  silent  shades. 

The  "  Orator,"  a  sort  of  ideal  delineation,   has  again 
many  vivid  personal  touches.     Toward  its  close  is  a  special 
Orator  published  treatment  of  rhythm,  each  form  of  metrical 
46  B.C.  58,        foot  being  frankly  assigned  to  a  special  emo- 
'^     '  tional  purpose.    This  essay,  also,  is  dedicated 

in  its  sub-title  ad  Marcum  Brutum.  Cicero  was  well 
aware  that  many  were  coming  to  prefer  Brutus's  curt, 
sinewy,  unadorned  style  to  his  own.  Indeed  it  is  probable 
that  Cicero  would  now  seem  quite  too  florid,  Brutus  far 
the  more  masterful. 

The  minor  rhetorical  studies  have  little  value  or  weight 
as  literature.  One  is  in  fact  a  sort  of  elementary  catechism 
arranged  as  a  text-book  of  questions  and  answers  for  the 
young  Marcus.  On  the  other  hand,  there  still  remains 
to  be  mentioned  the  mass  of  writings,  through  which  this 
remarkable  man  most  vitally  influenced  the  thought  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  sul)ject  does  not  exactly  belong  to  general  literature,  but  rather 
to  science.  Cicero,  however,  was  pre-eminently  fitted  for  a  popular 
treatment  of  the  art  in  which  he  made  unflagging  studies  and  efforts, 
and  in  which  he  has  probably  never  been  surpassed.  The  translation 
of  his  two  chief  essays,  by  Watson,  in  the  Bohn  Library,  seems  adequate 
as  a  rule.  There  is  a  convenient  American  edition  of  the  "Brutus" 
with  English  notes  by  Kellogg,  and  an  exhaustive  British  one  of  the 
"  De  Oratore,"  in  three  volumes,  by  Wilkins  In  the  introduction 
to  the  latter  is  a  very  thorough  analysis  of  the  "  Ad  Ilerennium," 
which  is  regarded  as  the  best  type  of  what  we  may  call  the  school 
rhetoric  of  the  Romans. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  ESSAYS,  AND  OTHER  WORKS. 

Luck,  Fate,  or  Providence,  has  been  astonishingly  gen- 
erous to  Cicero's  fame  as  a  writer.  His  orations,  his  cor- 
respondence, his  essays  in  all  fields,  have  usually  survived, 
alone  or  with  hardly  a  rival.  Even  as  a  philosopher  he  was 
for  many  centuries  assigned  a  leading  position,  and  many  of 
his  hasty  translations  or  free  recastings  of  Greek  work  are 
still  indispensable  to  us. 

Yet  this  is  almost  wholly  a  mischance.  It  is  due  to  the 
all  but  total  loss  of  the  Stoic,  Epicurean,  and  Academic 
writings  in  their  original  form.  Of  course  Cicero  does  not 
share  the  silliness,  the  bewilderment,  the  boundless  inac- 
curacy, of  Diogenes  Laertius,  the  Greek  ''biographer"  of 
the  philosophers.  He  is  tolerably  accurate  as  a  rule,  al- 
ways rational,  and  his  st3'le  is  at  least  never  obscure  or  dif- 
ficult. 

Cicero  was  hardly  a  real  philosopher,  but  a  serious, 
thoughtful,  and  scholarly  man,  interested  in  the  attempts 
of  others  to  solve  the  chief  moral  and  theological  problems. 
His  work  in  this  field  was  taken  up  late  in  life,  as  a  conso- 
lation and  diversion  in  bereavement,  in  political  disappoint- 
ment, in  enforced  exile  from  a  public  career.  It  was  done, 
as  a  rule,  in  feverish  haste.  Cicero's  own  allegiance  was  to 
the  ''  New  Academy."  With  him,  however,  this  means  little 
more  than  an  open-minded  eclecticism,  a  willingness  to 
supply  fluent  restatements  in  Latin  forms  for  all  the  schools, 
while  remaining  distinctly  sceptical  as  to  the  attainment 
of  absolute  truth. 

89 


90  THE    CICERONIAN   AGE 

We  feel  that  the  practical,  utilitarian,  gravely  Roman 
spirit  pervades  and  modifies  every  page.  He  is  by  no  means 
a  satisfactory  interpreter  of  his  Greek  masters.  But  their 
voices  are  silent. 

Even  the  Latin  terminology,  largely  invented  by  Cicero, 
lias  passed  into  the  languages  of  all  Western  Europe,  and 
has  not  yet  given  place  to  the  Greek  terms.  In  one  great 
respect  Cicero  was  a  true  Socratic  :  he  sought  helpful 
moral  truths  which  could  be  applied  to  daily  life. 

Cicero's  first  known  venture  in  this  field  was  in  some  re- 
spects the  boldest,  for  he  undertook  to  rival  Plato's  master- 
D  Re  Pubiica  piscc  with  a  Latin  dialogue,  in  six  books,  on 
published  the  State.     The  scene  was  laid  in  129  B.C., 

*     ■  ■  in    the  gardens  of  Scipio  yEmilianus.     We 

have  copious  fragments  only,  chiefly  recovered  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  from  a  palimpsest.  The  conversation  trav- 
ersed familiar  lines,  discussing  the  three  forms,  kingdom, 
aristocracy,  democracy,  and  the  distortion  of  each  in  ty- 
ranny, oligarchy,  ochlocracy,  as  in  Aristotle's  "Politics."  A 
fusion  of  the  three  nobler  forms  seems  preferable.  In- 
stead of  Plato's  little  ideal  state  is  substituted  the  actual 
and  mighty  commonwealth  of  Rome  itself,  of  which  an  his- 
torical sketch  is  given  by  Scipio,  in  Book  II. 

As  Plato  ended  his  volume  with  a  picture  of  the  rewards 
appointed  for  the  righteous  in  the  next  world,  so  Cicero 
closes  with  a  dream  of  Scipio  on  the  same  theme.  This 
final  passage  is  preserved  entire.  The  mystical  elements 
of  Plato's  vision  are  nearly  all  stript  off.  For  instance,  of 
reincarnation  there  is  no  hint.  AVe  are  merely  uplifted  for 
the  moment  to  the  Milky  Way,  to  be  assured  that  a  glorious 
and  abiding  home  is  there  prepared  for  the  souls  of  the 
good,  especially  of  those  "who  have  preserved,  aided, 
strengthened  their  native  land ; "  words  which  Cicero 
could  hardly  have  written  without  self-consciousness.  The 
practical  realistic  Roman  temper  is  here  unmistakable  :  yet 


THE    PHILOSOPHICAL   ESSAYS   AND   OTHER   WORKS      91 

the  dream,  the  dialogue  as  a  whole,  is  on  nearly  every  page 
indebted  to  Plato  and  his  successors.  Both  these  truths 
are  indeed  fairly  faced  in  the  first  sentence  of  Macrobius's 
prolix  commentary  on  the  Dream  :  "  Between  Plato's  book 
and  Cicero's  .  .  .  this  difference  is  seen  at  first  glance: 
.  .  .  the  one  has  discussed  what  ought  to  be,  the  other 
what  was  established  by  the  forefathers:  yet  .  .  .  the 
imitation  has  preserved  the  likeness." 

The  title  of  the  "Laws  "  is  also  taken  from  Plato.     The 
dialogue  is  carried  on  by  the  two  Ciceros  and  Atticus.     We 
have   only  three   books,  but   there  were  at 
^si^B^*"**'  ^ea.&t  five.     The  patriotic   pride  of  the  Eo- 

mans   is   here  still  more  prominent.      The 
sacral  laws  given  in  Book  II.  differ  little  from  those  in 
actual  use,  and  credited  to  Numa.     This  is 
indeed   remarked   by  Atticus,  and   warmly 
defended  by  Marcus  Cicero.      So,  too,  the  civic  govern- 
ment outlined  in  Book  III.  is  essentially  the 
ad  init."  °^^  Romau  Constitution.     Yet  the  debt   to 

Plato,  and  other  Greeks,  is  cordially  ac- 
knowledged. 

The  unwelcome  proconsulate  in  Cilicia,  and  the  war  be- 
tween Cassar  and  Pompey,  made  a  break  of  half  a  decade 
Cicero  in  Cilicia    ^^  Ciccro's  Career  as  a  writer.     But  the  last 
51-50  B.C.         three  years  of  his  life  show  amazing  activity 
Civil  War,  jj^  evcry  field.     We  can  do  little  more  than 

49-47  B.C.  -^ 

catalogue  his  chief  essays.  Nearly  all  are  in 
the  form  of  dialogues,  but  the  dramatic  illusion  is  as  a  rule 
feebly  maintained. 

The  most  important  work  of  this  period,  and  one  of 
the  least  satisfying,  is  the  "  De  Finibus  Bonorum  et  Ma- 
o  r,.  ,^         ^     lorum."     In  the  five  books  are  included  three 

De  Fmlbus,  pub- 
lished 45  B.C.    conversations,  in  different   years,  lands,  and 

circumstances.     The  general  subject  is   the 

highest  or  ideal  Good.     This  is  discussed  from  the  Epicu- 


92  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

rean,  Stoic,  Peripatetic,  and  Academic  points  of  view.  There 
is  much  repetition.  Tlie  Greek  sources  are  not  given,  of 
course,  and  we  get  the  impression  that  much  is  mere  hasty 
translation  from  hand-books  compiled  by  late  and  lesser 
members  of  the  famous  Attic  schools.  While  Cicero  dis- 
likes, and  probably  states  inadequately,  the  Epicurean  doc- 
trines, he  feels,  with  his  age,  that  the  other  schools  differ 
rather  in  names  and  definitions  than  in  essentials. 

Much  better  finislied  in  form,  and  more  popular  in  every 

sense,  are  the  "Tusculan  Disputations."     In  each  of  the 

five  books  a  thesis  is  stated  and  defended  by 

a  nameless  young  friend,  then  triumphantly 

refuted  by  Cicero  himself.     These  theses  are  : 

(1.)  Death  is  an  evil. 

(2.)  Pain  is  the  greatest  of  evils. 

(3.)  Misery  befalls  the  wise  man. 

(4.)  The  wise  man  cannot  be  secure  from  agony  of  mind. 

(5.)  Character  does  not  suffice  to  happiness. 

The  copious  illustrations,  and  the  extremely  frequent 
poetic  citations,  are  drawn  quite  impartially  from  Greece 
and  Rome.  The  original  share  of  Cicero  seems  larger  than 
usual.  It  is  in  fact  almost  a  continuous  lecture  in  his  own 
proper  voice.  This  work  has  always  been  widely  accepted 
as  one  of  the  most  helpful  productions  of  "  pagan  "  ethics. 
It  is  certainly  Cicero's  own  best  contribution  to  the  art  of 
living  happily. 

The  '*  l)e  Deorum  Natura"  discusses  the  beliefs  of  the 
various  schools  as  to  the  character  and  activity  of  the 
divine  beings.  From  the  eloquent  silence  of 
the  letters  on  such  matters,  we  surmise  that 
Cicero,  and  his  friends  generally,  were  really  Agnostics. 
More  instructive  in  detail  is  the  "  De  Divinatione,"  a  sup- 
plementary treatise  in  two  books.  Here  Quintus  Cicero 
sets  forth  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  augury,  through  astrology. 


THE    PHILOSOPHICAL   ESSAYS   AND   OTHER    WORKS      93 

visions  or  dreams,  marvellous  incidents,  flight  of  birds,  en- 
trails of  victims,  etc.,  etc.  In  the  second  book  Marcus 
refutes  the  belief,  and  ridicules  the  whole 
science.  This  is  the  more  instructive,  be- 
cause Cicero  prided  himself  on  his  life-membership  in  the 
sacred  state  college  of  augurs. 

The  "  De  Officiis"  is  a  practical  treatise  on  ethics,  in- 
tended for  the  author's  only  son,  young  Marcus.     Though 
quite  lacking  in  system  or  unity,  it  has  had 
'*'*    ■  '  much   popularity   and   influence    for   good, 

through  its  sensible  rules  of  behavior  and  patriotic  illus- 
trations. It  is  to  be  feared  that  all  this  was  wasted  on  the 
last  scion  of  the  house,  who  was  famous  under  Augustus 
only  on  account  of  his  unrivalled  capacity  for  wine.  He  was, 
however,  the  titular  consul  to  whom  was  brought,  in  31  B.C., 
the  news  tiiat  Antony  had  perished  :  a  dramatic  revenge. 

Merely  naming  the  "  Paradoxa  Stoicorum,"  the  "De 
Fato,"  the  fragmentary  "Tima^us,"  which  was  but  a  trans- 
lation from  Plato,  and  the  more  important  "  Academica," 
we  may  speak  more  warmly  of  two  little  essays  still  widely 
read. 

The  "  De  Senectute,"  On  Old  Age,  is  an  utterance  of  sin. 
cere  feeling  on  a  topic  of  universal  interest.  The  charac- 
ter of  Cato — here  greatly  softened — was  one 
in  which  every  Konian  felt  fitting  pride. 
The  fact  remains,  that  most  of  the  best  thoughts  are  to  be 
found,  quite  as  well  uttered,  in  such  familiar  places  as 
the  introduction  to  Plato's  "  Republic,"  The  artistic,  sen- 
sitive Greek  was  more  sharply  repelled  from  the  ugliness 
and  physical  decay  of  old  age  than  was  the  grave,  dignified 
Roman.  In  Cicero  we  are  reminded  even,  at  times,  of 
Browning's  challenge  : 

"  Grow  old  along  with  me  : 
The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made. " 


94  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

But  Plato  makes  even  his  jDrosperous  gray -beard  concede  : 
puto.  Republic,  '^  A  good  man  cannot  be  altogether  cheerful 
Booki.,33oA.      under  old  age  and  poverty  combined." 

The  praise  of  agriculture  comes  less  naturally  from 
Cicero's  pen.  Here  we  may  suppose  the  real  Cato  to  be  ex- 
erting his  influence.  Cicero  apologizes  for  making  him 
quote  so  freely  from  Creek  authors,  particularly  Xenophon. 

The  "  De  Amicitia,"  like  the  companion  essay,  is  dedi- 
cated to  Atticus,  who  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  faith- 
ful of    friends.       That  Cicero's  essay  is  as 

44  B.C.  ^ 

satisfactory  as  Bacon's,  or  Emerson's,  few 
will  contend.  Most  readers  feel  a  certain  coldness  in  its 
tone,  a  rather  frank  though  unconscious  confession  of  self- 
ishness.    Yet  many  touches  appeal  to  universal  sympathy. 

Long  as  this  list  is,  we  would  gladly  recall  at  least  one 
lost  work,  the  "  Consolatio,"  by  which  a  broken-hearted 
father  strove  to  lighten  his  own  grief  after  Tullia's  death 
in  45  B.C.  Even  here  he  avowedly  follows  a  Greek  essay  on 
Grief,  by  Grantor.  The  bitter  pessimism  of  this  book  is 
condemned  by  the  Christian  Lactantius.  Cicero  began 
with  the  assertion,  reminding  us  of  Plato's  "  Phaidros," 
that  this  life  itself  is  a  punishment  for  sin  elsewhere. 

In  leaving  this  general  subject  of  the  philosophic  works, 
Cicero's  own  words  to  Atticus  may  fairly  be 
quoted  :  "■  These  are  transcripts.  They  are 
made  with  comparatively  little  toil.  I  supply  only  words, 
of  which  I  have  an  abundance."  In  Latinizing  and  popu- 
larizing the  main  results  of  Greek  thought  he  attained 
his  aim.  For  a  really  large  and  contemplative  view  of 
„„  ....    a      .  ancient  philosophy  we  may  look,  rather,  as 

Windelband  apud  ^  ^    /  •' 

nuiier.  vol.  v.,  a    recent    authority   suggests,    to   a    calmer 
p.  336.  spirit,  poised  upon  a  remoter  and  securer  out- 

look for  retrospect :  to  Augustine.  We  should  not  fail  to 
add,  that  the  saintly  bishop  himself  was  first  attracted  to 


THE    PHILOSOPHICAL   ESSAYS   AND   OTHER   WORKS      95 

serious  studies  by  the  praise  of  "divine  philosophy"  in 
the  ''Hortensius,"a  woric  now  lost,  a  general  introduction 
to  Cicero's  philosophic  books,  generously  dedicated  to  his 
defeated  rival  in  oratory. 

The  excursions  of  Cicero  into  some  still  remoter  fields 
excited  mirth  even  in  his  own  day.  A  geography,  de- 
manded by  Atticus,  he  found  very  laborious,  the  material 
Ad  Att.,  II.,  6.  resisting  flowery  treatment,  as  he  complains. 
Pritcian,  vi.,  i6,  Yet  the  one  sentence  preserved  by  a  gram- 
83.  marian's  citation  (to  show  that  quercus  may 

be  of  the  second  declension)  is  a  gem  :  "There  the  boughs 
of  oaks  rest  on  the  ground,  so  that  pigs  like  goats  may  feed 
on  acorns  from  the  brandies."  All  else  is  forgot.  So  true 
is  Horace's  word,  "  Books  have  a  doom  of  their  own  !  " 

Of  the  impartiality,  and  objective  view,  required  of  the 
historian,  few  men  have  less.  Moreover,  Cicero  entered 
this  field  expressly  to  record  his  own  exploits.  He  began 
with  a  Memoir  on  his  consulship,  sent,  of  all  men,  to  Pom- 
pey,  then  in  the  full  tide  of  Eastern  conquest.  That  cold 
and  jealous  spirit,  naturally,  could  not  stomach  it. 

So  far  as  their  imaginative  power  is  concerned,  his  poems 
also  can  have  been  of  little  value.  Here  again  his  tireless 
self-consciousness  misled  him  into  composing  at  least  three 
books  on  his  consulate.  The  surviving  speech  of  Urania, 
De  Divinatione,  i^  scventy-cight  hexameters,  describing  the 
I..  II,  lyff.  omens  that  foreshadowed  the  Catilinarian 
plot,  will  suffice  to  allay  all  regret  for  this  lost  work.  It 
is  quoted  by  Quintus,  against  Marcus,  to  uphold  the  art  of 
divination.  A  somewhat  happier  subject  was  his  towns- 
man Marius.  This  poem,  probably  an  early  one,  is  also 
cited  in  a  similar  manner  by  Quintus  in  the  same  dialogue, 
and  the  thirteen  lines  describe  a  vigorous  contest  between 
a  serpent  (Sulla )  and  an  eagle  (Marius).  Again,  the  incur- 
sion of  Caesar  into  Britain  inspired  a  laudatory  poem. 


96  THE    CICEKONIAN    AGE 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  our  poverty,  that  these 
casual  experiments  by  a  skilful  rhetorician  are  of  real  im- 
portance in  the  study  of  Roman  versification  :  for  Cicero 
supplies  the  only  considerable  body  of  hexameters  be- 
tween Enuius's  "  Annales"  and  the  days  of  Lucretius  and 
Catullus.  Cicero  in  his  early  verse  still  ignores  the  final  s, 
like  Ennius,  but  has  made  a  great  advance  over  him  in 
ease  of  expression  and  rhythm.  This  is  best  seen  in  the 
sustained  translation  from  Aratos's  astronomical  poem,  the 
"  Phainomena,"  in  four  hundred  and  eighty  hexameters. 
Despite  its  prominence  in  literature,  this  metre  in  Latin 
always  remained  alien,  artificial,  and  somewhat  difficult. 

The  influence  of  Cicero  on  Latin  prose  can  hardly  be 
overestimated.  Editors,  from  his  own  faithful  freedman 
TuUius  Tiro  onward,  annotators,  beginning  with  the  ex- 
cellent historical  comment  on  the  orations  by  Asconius  in 
the  next  generation,  have  multiplied  in  every  age.  His 
works  were  never  wholly  lost,  though  many  were  rescued 
from  oblivion  and  republished  by  Petrarch  and  Poggio.  To 
this  day,  everyone  who  attempts  to  write  classical  Latin 
must  simply  peruse  and  imitate  this  supreme  arbiter  of 
style. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  this  kind  of  Latin  was 
always  somewhat  artificial,  and  diverged  widely  from  col- 
loquial speech,  as  may  be  seen  clearly  by  comparing  the 
sonorous  periods  of  any  oration  with  the  familiar  key  of  a 
letter  to  Atticus.  The  popular  speech  has  outlasted  by 
many  centuries  the  literary  dialect.  Indeed,  the  chat  of 
street  and  market  to-day  in  Trastevere  may  often  be  not  so 
very  remote  from  the  speech  of  Plautus,  or  Petronins. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  reader  ignorant  of  Latin  could  have  no  better  cicerone  than  Dr. 
Andrew  P.  Peabody,  who  included  in  his  scries  of  annotated  versions 
the  "  Tusculan  Disputations,"  the  "  De  Senectute,"  "De  Amicitia,"  and 


THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   ESSAYS  A^Sl)   OTHER   WORKS      97 

the  "  De  Officiis. "  The  "  Dream  of  Scipio"  was  translated  by  Professor 
T.  R.  Lounsbury  for  his  "  Chaucer."  Specialists  will  be  familiar  with 
such  works  as  Mayor's  voluminous  annotations  on  the  "  De  Natura 
Deorum,"  and  the  labors  of  J.  S.  Reid  on  the  "  De  Finibus,"  including 
an  accurate  translation.  The  tribute  of  Augustine,  mentioned  in  the 
text,  in  so  striking,  and  so  inaccessible  to  many,  that  it  may  be  tran- 
scribed here  : 

"  Ego  postquam  in  schola  rhetoris  librum  ilium  Ciceronis,  qui  '  Hor- 
tensius '  vocatur,  accepi,  tanto  amore  philosophise  succensus  sum,  ut 
statim  ad  earn  me  transferre  meditarer."     (De  Beata  Vita,  §  4.) 

"  lUe  vero  liber  mutavit  afifectum  meum  et  ad  te  ipsum,  domine, 
mutavit  preces  meas  et  vota  ac  desideria  mea  fecit  alia. "  (Confessions 
iii.,  4,  7.) 

The  poems  may  be  found  either  in  Bahrens's  "  Fragmenta  "  or  in 
Vol.  XI.  of  the  Baiter  and  Kayser  Cicero. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

C^SAR 

The  life  and  character  of  the  great  Julius,  perhaps  the 
largest  and  most  influential  career  in  all  history,  can  be 
touched  upon  here  only  to  lead  up  to  one  question  :  the  origin 
and  purpose  of  the  "  Commentaries."  They  are  not  hasty 
field-notes  of  a  campaigner.  We  have  before  us  a  simple 
Brutus,  75, 262.  mastcrpiece  of  style,  as  Cicero  warmly  testifies. 
face 'to'  B.'a^  ^^  ^^^  Created  with  the  swiftness,  grace,  and 
viii-  apparent  ease  of  genius,  in  the  year  51  B.C. 

If  intended  to  appease  Caesar's  personal  enemies  and  avert 
civil  war,  it  failed  of  its  immediate  purpose  :  but  as  an 
appeal  to  after-time,  as  an  Apologia  pro  Vita,  it  reaches  a 
fresh  jury  in  each  age  :  not  the  reluctant  children  for  whom 
its  quaint  doom  makes  it  a  parsing-book  and  first  reader, 
but  rather  the  Niebuhrs,  Mommsens,  and  Von  Rankes  of 
every  civilized  race.  On  the  whole  the  verdict  upon  the 
book,  as  upon  the  life,  is  one  of  hearty  admiration  and  per- 
sonal regard. 

Caesar  found  himself  amid  forces  which  he  could  at  best 
only  guide,  not  escape.     Above  all,  between  the  little  sena- 
Caesar  an  Oppor-  torial  oligarchy  and  the  blind  led  city  mob, 
tunist.  there  was  no  longer  a  true  middle  class,  only 

the  wealthy  yet  greedy  equites,  mostly  engaged  in  farming 
the  provincial  revenues,  after  the  present  Turkish  fashion, 
for  their  own  immediate  enrichment.  The  nephew  of 
Marius,  the  son-in-law  of  Cinna,  saved  with  difficulty  from 
Sulla's  keen  and  deadly  eye,  Cfesar  was  called  from  the 
first  to  be  the  leader  of  the  mob.     lie  wisely  planned  to  be 

98 


JILTUS    C.ESATl. 
Anti(iui'  liiist  in  the  riipitoliiic  Mii«onni. 


C^SAR  99 

its  master,  too.  Much  of  his  youthful  dissipation,  even  if 
all  the  scandalous  gossip  of  a  Suetonius  be  given  a  hearing, 
may  have  been  a  screen  against  partisan  or  personal  hatred. 
Certainly  he  was  a  profound  student  of  history  and  litera- 
ture, even  a  fastidious  scholar,  a  consummate  orator. 
Above  all,  human  character  was  to  him  an  open  book. 

Free  from  all  superstition  or  religion,  save  a  faith  in  his 
own  destiny,  he  at  thirty-seven  sought  and  won  the  life- 
Cffisar  Pontifex     P^^^  ^^  Supreme  pontiff,  made  an  exhaustive 

naximus,  63     study  of  ceremonial,  wrote  a  careful  treatise 
on    ''Divination.''      Cicero    himself,  blind 
to  the  ruin  he  is  even  then  preparing  for  his  own  career 
by  hasty  illegal  executions,  already  realizes  that  Caesar  has 
followed  that  path  in  politics  which  is  accounted  popular, 
In  Cat   iv    V       ^^y>  is  "truly  popular."     The  people  love 
pious  conformity.     They  also  love  the  circus. 
Cffisar  /Ediie,       The  shows  of  Cassar's  aedileship  had  broken 
^   '  '  all   records,   and   plunged  the  future  high- 

priest  millions  deep  in  insolvency.  One  year  as  propraetor 
Csesar  in  Spain.    ^^  Spain  cleared  off  all  debts.     It  cannot  be 

61-60  B.C.         claimed  that  Csesar  was  careful  of  the  prop- 
erty, or  the  life,  of  provincials. 

The  purely  private  and  nowise  illegal  understanding 
60  B.C.  with  Pompeius  and  Crassus  made  Cffisar  at 

"  First  Trium-     least  "  second  in  Rome.''     The  blunderins: 

^  ™  *■  selfishness   and   growing    indolence    of    the 

lucky  victor  over  effete  Orientals  must  soon  leave  him 
first. 

But  now  came  the  seven  years  of  superhuman  exertion, 
of  voluntary  exile,  of  constant  personal  peril,  of  unrivalled 
Campaigns  in       servicc  to  Rome.     Slaying  a  million  warriors 

Qaui,  58-52       of  the  Kelts,  he  utterly  broke  their  spirit, 

and   removed   forever    that    nearest   terror. 

Gaul  indeed  remained  the  best  "pacified"  of  the  provinces. 

Even  the  resistless  Teutonic  deluge  he  rolled  back,  perhaps 


100  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

delayed  for  four  centuries.  No  Koman  army  or  general 
ever  performed  a  larger,  more  arduous,  or  more  useful 
task. 

In  return  he  is  invited  home  to  face  degradation,  im- 
peachment, probably  an  ignominious  death.  The  army,  a 
.     ^  „  .  resistless  weapon,  is  in  his  hand.     Yet  he 

At  the  Rubicon.  .  -^ 

waits  patiently.  While  calmly  setting  forth  his 
own  unrivalled  services,  he  still  utters  cordial  approval  of 
Pompey's  belated  measures  to  keep  order  in  the  caj)ital. 
De  Beiio  Qaiiiico,  Why  may  we  not  believe  Caesar  at  least  as 

vii.,  6.  sincere  a  patriot  as  Cicero  ?     He  may  well 

have  clung  to  the  slow-dying  republican  forms,  may  have 
dreaded  to  see  the  greatest  of  orators  cringing  and  flatter- 
ing at  a  dictator's  footstool,  may  have  foreseen,  even,  the 
hatred  and  the  daggers  of  a  Casca  and  a  Cassius,  if  not  of 
the  beloved  Brutus  or  the  ungrateful  Ligarius.  At  least, 
he  did  long  draw  back  from  the  gulf  of  war  :  refused  to  be 
Marius's  successor  in  civic  massacre  :  prided  himself  always 
Cicero,  In  Cat.,     that  no  fcllow-citizen's  blood  shed  in  peace 

'^•'  ^-  stained  his  hands.     To  Eomans  Caesar  was 

indeed  always  "  mitissimus  atque  lenissimus"  most  gentle 
and  most  mild. 

The  greatest,  most  instructive,  most  lucid,  and  calmest, 
of  political  pamphlets,  the  ''' Commentaries,"  are  beyond 
doubt,  also  essentially  true.  As  to  the  main  facts,  indeed, 
scores  of  public  bulletins,  thousands  of  eye-witnesses,  com- 
pelled exactness.  If  the  repeated  assertions  of  Gallic  treach- 
ery and  aggression,  of  Caesar's  own  reluctance  to  advance 
and  clemency  in  victory,  seem  needlessly  at  variance  with 
the  appalling  results  in  Gaul,  Switzerland,  Belgium,  even  in 
England  and  on   the   Rhine,  we    must  re- 

sarxxii-.and     member   that  eager  young  advocates  were 

CatoiL.Beii.     ulways  Waiting  to  win  fame  and  ofl&ce  by 

impeachments,     as     Cicero     had     assailed 

Verres,    as   Caesar   himself  in  youth  had  vainly  attacked 

the  less  guilty  Dolabella  and  Antouius.     Cato  had  actuullv 


C^SAR  101 

proposed  that  Caesar  be  delivered  over  to  a  German  tribe 
which  he  had  mercilessly  crushed. 

Every  student  of  strategy,  like  Miles  Standish,  every 
thoughtful  reader  of  history,  every  lover  of  austere,  lucid 
style,  must  turn  these  pages  with  delight,  in  maturity, 
unless  they  were  spoiled  for  him  by  misuse  in  childhood. 
If  our  boys  must  read  Caesar,  let  tliem  at  least  begin  with 
the  manners  of  the  Germans,  Britons,  and  Gauls,  the  cu- 
rious beasts  of  the  forest,  or  the  picturesque  first  landing 
under  the  cliifs  of  Dover. 

One  would  suppose  the  style  alone  of  the  Ariovistus- 
speeches  would  have  warned  off  all  humane  educators. 
Such  a  mass  of  oratio  oiJiqua  exists  nowhere  else,  in  clas- 
sical literature.  Through  all  its  mazes,  even  to  the  sen- 
Beii.  Qaii.,  I.,  tence  where  Latin  syntax  breaks  down  ex- 
36-  hausted  and  its  single  reflexive  squints  four 

ways  in  as  many  lines,  Caesar's  clear,  remorseless  logic  leads 
us  unerringly  on.  But  as  for  the  children  who  must  follow 
such  a  piper — . 

Csesar's  artistic  purpose  in  this  phase  of  his  style  seems 
plain.  The  arguments  pro  and  con,  in  the  cases  both  of 
the  Helvetian  migration  and  the  Germans'  raid,  must  be 
set  forth.  The  use  of  interpolated  speeches,  with  their 
elaborately  fictitious  rhetoric,  he  profoundly  disapproved. 
So  Herodotos,  the  master  of  all  story-tellers,  rightly  re- 
Herod.,  viu.,  fused  to  stop  his  swift  dramatic  action,  as 
*3.  day  dawned  over  Salamis,  for  Themistocles's 

set  speech  to  his  men.  Instead,  both  authors  give  "  the 
substance  of  what  was  actually  said,"  in  a 
form  which,  throughout  every  clause,  re- 
calls us  to  the  unity  of  the  narrative  in  the  chronicler's 
e.g.,  B.  a.,  iv.,  mastery.  That  a  very  brief  direct  utterance 
"^'  could  be  used  to  heighten  the  effect  of  action 

Caesar  knew,  and  has  shown  no  less  skilfully. 

The  need  of  this  protest  against  the  rhetorical  treatment 
of  history  is  only  too  plain.     "With  Caesar's  protege  Sallust 


102  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

we  liave  an  immediate  relapse.  Livy  with  all  his  charm 
sins  no  less  grievously.  Finally,  the  chief  critics  of  the 
Silver  Age,  even  Quintilian,  actually  nplift  Sallust  to  su- 
preme honor  beside  Thucydides.  Yet  the  "  Gallic  ^\ar" 
is  to  modern  taste  the  undoubted  masterpiece  of  Latin 
historical  composition. 

The  "  Civil  War  "  is  far  less  perfect.  Even  Caesar's  mind 
is- distracted  by  the  Atlantean  tasks  of  his  last  years.  The 
embers  of  civil  strife  were  too  hot  to  be  trodden  fearlessly. 
There  is  evidence  of  suppression,  of  special  pleading,  of 
haste,  even  of  nervous  excitement.  This  volume  is  indeed, 
at  times,  what  Cajsar  too  modestly  called  the  "  De  Bello 
Gallico  : "  raw  material,  a  quarry  for  later  historians.  Yet 
40-48  B  c  *^^^  work  also  is  precious,  and  we  regret  that 

the  three  books  cover  only  two  years.  Doubt- 
less this,  like  more  important  tasks,  was  rudely  interrupted 
by  Caesar's  death. 

The  miraculous  fact  is,  that  this  man  of  unrivalled  en- 
ergy in  action,  with  equal  genius  for  destructive  warfare 
and  for  constructive  statesmanship,  was  also  second,  and  a 
worthy  second,  in  the  age  of  Ciceronian  prose.  The  loss 
of  his  orations  is  to  be  deplored.  Several  we  might  per- 
haps restore,  from  his  histories.  His  political  pamphlet 
against  Cato  dead — Cato  who  had  "cheated  him  out  of  the 
opportunity  to  pardon  him" — must  have  been  a  curious- 
ly human  document.  Once  while  crossing  the  Alps  he 
found  time  to  write,  and  dedicate  to  Cicero,  an  excellent 
essay  on  "analogy,"  form  in  language,  style.  His  favorite 
maxim  was  to  use  no  queer,  archaic,  or  unfamiliar  word. 
His  briefest  billets  are  among  the  gems  of  the  Ciceronian 
correspondence. 

The  one  extant  specimen  of  his  excursions  into  literary 

criticism,  and  into  verse,  gives  us  a  lively  hun- 

upra,  p.  so.       ^^^  ^^^  more.    It  is  the  judgment  on  Terence, 

already  mentioned,  preserved  in  the  poet's  biography  : 


C^SAR  103 

"  You  moreover,  although  you  be  but  the  half  of  Menander, 
Lover  of  diction  pure,  with  the  first  have  a  place,  and  with 

reason. 
Would  that  vigor  as  well  to  your  graceful  style  had  been 

added. 
So  your  comic  force  would  in  equal  glory  have  rivalled 
Even  the  Greeks  themselves,   though  now  you  ignobly  are 

vanquished. 
Truly   I   sorrow   and  grieve  that  you   lack   this  only,    O 

Terence." 

The  Eighth  book  of  the  "  Gallic  War  "  was  added  by 
Cffisar's  loyal  officer  and  friend  Hirtius.  It  covers  both  51 
and  50  B.C.  In  supplements  to  the  "  Civil  War"  again,  the 
Alexandrian  African  and  Spanish  campaigns  are  treated 
by  various  unpractised  hands,  apparently  veterans  of  these 
wars.  The  value  of  these  essays  is  wholly  in  their  contents. 
The  form  is  awkward,  in  part  even  illiterate,  not  to  say 
barbarous. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Plutarch  is  a  far  more  edifying  biographer  than  Suetonius.  The 
hearty  words  of  Cicero  on  the  "  Commentaries  "  ("  Brutus,"  75,  262), 
are  remarkable,  because  his  own  style  is  so  remote  from  Caesar's. 
The  two  men  evidently  admired,  even  loved,  each  other. 

Cffisar's  best  eulogist  is  Mommsen.  See  especially  his  Roman 
History,  Book  V.,  chapter  XI.  Fowler's  Julius  Caesar  is  the  best 
English  biography.  Napoleon  III.'s  work  is  valuable  for  its  illustra- 
tive plans,  maps,  etc.  School  editions  of  the  "  Gallic  War  "  are  num- 
berless.    Moberly  has  edited  the  "  Civil  War  "  in  handy  form. 

Translations  of  Ctesar  need  no  bush.  Capital  is  the  rapid 
spirited  summary,  with  citations,  by  Anthony  TroUope,  in  a  volume 
of  a  most  useful,  unpretentious  series,  the  "Ancient  Classics  for 
English  Readers." 


\ 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SALLUST  AND  NEPOS 
GAIUS   SA.LLUSTIUS   CKISPUS. 

Sallust's  career,  as  we  hear  of  it,  seems  to  illustrate 
the  worst  tendencies  of    his  century.     The  long  quarrel 
with  Milo  is  said  to  have  been  begun  in  a 
sound  beating  received  from  him  as  a  right- 
eously enraged  husband.     As  tribune  in  52  B.G^^allust 
aided  vigorously  in  overawing  IMilo's  defend- 

Vlde8upra.p.78.  *  in-  +1         i  •    *  a 

ers,  among  whom  Cicero  was  the  chief,  and 
driving  him  into  exile.  His  expulsion  from  tlia  senate 
by  the  censors,  in  50  B.C.,  may  have  been  a  political  move, 
but  the  reason  given  was  "  notorious  immorality."  By 
devotion  to  Coesar  he  won  restoration  to  his  senatorial  rank, 
some  military  distinction,  and  a  proconsulai'^jposition  in 
Africa,  where  in  one  year  he  accumulated  immense  wealth, 
llis  subsequent  trial  for  extortion  took  place  before  the 
dictator,  who  may  well  have  winked  at  a  too  faithful  copy 
of  his  own  methods  in  Spain.  Sallust's  splendid  gardens 
on  the  Quirinal  remained  for  centuries  a  favorite  residence 
of  the  emperors. 

Sallust  outlived  his  leader,  and,  apparently  in  the  luxu- 
rious idleness  of  his  last  years,  became  ambitious  to  win 
fame  as  a  writer.  He  chose  for  his  first  attempt  the 
Catilinarian  conspiracy  :  an  excelleiit  subject  jor  a  mono- 
graph.  But  his  essay,  of  twelve  thousand  words,  is  not  a 
good  piece  of  historical  work.  He  assumes,  from  the  first 
words,   an  austere  philosophic  attitude,  a   contemptuous 

104 


SALLUST   AND   NEPOS  105 

superiority  to  vulgar  mortals.  But  the  phrases  are  turgid 
and  hollow,  the  thoughts  commonplace  and  unlinked,  the 
Cat.  III.  ad  anxiety  as  to  his  own  damaged  reputation 
*'"•  comes  presently  to  the  surface.     His  sketch 

of  old  Rome  is  vague  and  ideal,  meant  for  rhetorical  con- 
trast. The  color  grows  somewhat  more  definite  as  he 
describes  the  evil   effects  of  Sulla's  Asiatic 

■'    '  conquests  :   but  the   scandals   of   Catiline's 

youth,  the  general  growth  of  corruption  and  insolvency, 
etc.,  are  described  from  general  knowledge  or  hearsay,  and 
we  get  little  evidence  of  real  investigation. 

Considering  his  political  and  personal  quarrel  with 
Cicero,  the  general  fairness  of  the  main  account  is  credit- 
able. The  speeches  give  an  air  of  realism  to  the  story,  un- 
til we  perceive  that  they  are  all  inventive  products  of  the 
same  rhetorical  taste  as  the  general  narrative.  This  is,  in- 
deed, a  capital  offence  of  ancient  historians  generally 
against  our  own  code  of  truthfulness,  and  is 
•  "P  •  •  '•  frankly  avowed  by  Thucydides,  whom  Sallust 
consciously_emulates  jjut  never  ap2)roaches.  Thus  Caesar's 
speech  in  the  senate,  to  save  the  conspirators'  lives,  would 
be  highly  interesting  if  authentic  :  but  the  very  opening 
words  are  a  mere  echo  of  the  resounding  first  sentence  in 
the  essay  itself.  The  best  touch  is  the  picture  of  the  law- 
lessj  violent  city  mob,  7eady  to  join  Catiline  in  success, 
prompt  to  turn  against  him  in  failure.  The  contrast  be- 
tween Caesar  and  Cato,  which  follows  their  speeches,  is 
clever,  and  appears  to  show  clearly  that  Caesar  is  now 
dead.  Indeed,  if  living,  that  exquisite  master  of  true 
simplicity  would  perhaps  have  pruned  away  much  of  Sal- 
lust's  rhetoric.  The  composition  might  well  have  ap- 
peared in  44—43,  which  would  account  for  the  respectful 
treatment  of  Cicero. 

The  close  of  the  essay  is  in  quiet  good  taste.  In  general 
the  whole  is  worthy  of  careful,  critical  perusal,  by  a  mature 


106  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

student.  For  school-room  use  it  has  fatal  faults  already 
indicated,  and  one  other :  an  np.f»fl.si<;)pfl,1  pnai-afinftSR  \n 
words  and  thouglit,  too  common  in  Eoman  utterance. 
Especially  do  we  feel  this  when  women  are  mentioned. 
So  much,  at  least,  the  age  of  chivalry  has  still  left  us  in 
the  West, — a  preference  for  clean  words. 

, ,  The  second  essay,  on  the  Jugurthine  War,  is  twice  as 

^  )  long.  The  pretentious  philosopTnzing  of  Chapters  I.-IV. 
may  be  skipped.  Sallust's  residence  in  Africa  had  given 
him  opportunities,  which  he  appears  to  have  used  with 
some  care,  to  gather  local  data.  We  are  told  much  which 
we  hear  from  no  other  source,  and  are  disposed  to  accept 
as  probably  true.  The  narrative  is  interesting,  and  gener- 
ally well  told.  The  ethical  purpose  claimed,  to  lay  bare 
the  insidious  and  dangerous  corruption  of  the  old  Roman 
morality,  is,  naturally,  much  the  same  as  before.  Chro- 
nology,' and  exactness  generally,  appear  to  be  sacrificed  at 
times  to  dramatic  and  rhetorical  effect. 

From  Sallust's  third  and  largest  undertaking,  a  history 
^i  of  the  years  78-G7  B.C.,  there  remain  only  speeches  and 
'    letters,   with   scanty   other  fragments.     These  indicate  a 
decided  progress  in  rhetorical  ingenuity. 

Judged  by  his  extant  books,  Sallust  is  by  no  means  to 
be  ranked  among  the  world's  great  historians.  In  method 
of  investigation,  in  impartial  presentment,  in  taste  and  in 
force,  the  single  youthful  work  of  Francis  Parkman  on  the 
"Conspiracy  of  Pontiac/'  for  instance,  is  incomparably 
superior  to  Sallust's  essays.  Yet  in  the  glamour  of  his 
subjects,  in  abundance  of  accessible  data,  in  limitless  means 
and  leisure,  the  Roman  had  every  advantage.  I"".^? riHtM, 

^y        As  to   Sallust's  style,    tastes   will    differ.      His   curter  J 

*^'  sentences,  his  sudden  changes  of  construction,  his  archaic 
words,  appear  to  many  students  far-sought,  ineffective, 
tawdry.  Yet  it  is  all  a  remarkable  performance  for  such 
a  man,  beginning  so  late  one  of  the  most  arduous  of  tasks. 


SALLUST   AND   NEPOS  107 


CORNELIUS   NEPOS. 

Of  tliis  respectable  minor  member  in  tlie  Ciceronian 
circle  little  is  known.  His  long  life  ran  nearly  parallel 
with  Atticus's.  He  was  born  north  of  the  Po,  like  Catul- 
lus, Virgil,  and  many  other  leading  authors,  and  had  very 
possibly 'Keltic  blood  in  his  veins.  His  letters  to  and 
from  Cicero  are  missing  from  the  general  correspondence, 
AdAtt  xvi  s  B  ^^^'^S^^  ^^^®  latter  once  remarks  "  Nepotis 
Macrob  ii  i  i  ^P^^iolani  cxspecto,"  but  Macrobius  quotes 
from  the  second  book  of  a  special  collection. 
He  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Atticus,  apparently  like  him 
a  publisher.  ""His  life  appears  to  have  been  a  peaceful  one  : 
at  least,  again  like  Atticus,  he  avoided  any  dangerous 
prominence  in  the  fierce  politics  of  the  first  century  be- 
fore Christ. 

Nepos  was  a  voluminous,  superficial,  careless,  rather 
graceful  and  readable  scribbler  on  historical  subjects. 
Catullus,  in  the  dedication  of  his  verses,  alludes  roguishly 
to  his  friend's  three  ponderous  volumes  on  universal 
history.  He  prepared  also  an  encyclopaedia  of  biography, 
in  sixteen  or  more  sections,  filled  up  alternately  with 
Roman  and  foreign  worthies. 

As  his  unquestioned  work  are  extant  lives  of  Cato  the 
Censor  and  of  Atticus.  The  latter  is  an  elaborated  eulo- 
gistic biography  of  from  four  to  five  thousand  words. 
The  former,  already  cited,  comprises  barely  four  hundred, 
but  refers  at  the  close  to  a  monograph  on 
Cato  "separately,"  made  at  Atticus's  re- 
quest.    The  extant  sketch,  then,  was  in  the  collection. 

In  another  MS.,  and  accredited  to  an  ^milius  Probns 
as  author,  are  preserved  twenty-three  brief  biographies  of 
foreign  commanders.  Probus  is  otherwise  known  only  from 
an  epigram,  of  six  faulty  lines,  in  which  he  offers  his  Car- 
mina,  poems,  to  the  Emperor  Tlieodosius.     But  the  easy 


108  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

pure  Latinity  of  these  sketches  dates  from  no  such  serai- 
barbarous  source  or  time.  The  coincidence  of  idiom  and 
style  with  the  two  unquestioned  essays  con- 
378-395  A.b.  vinces  nearly  all  scholars  that  these  twenty- 
three  sketches  are  also  a  remnant  of  Nepos's  cyclopaedia 
of  biography. 

In  truth  the  whole  question  is  of  trifling  importance. 
Our  extreme  poverty  in  ancient  Latin  books  suited  for 
childish  readers  has  given  this  third-rate  hackwork  a  stand- 
ing in  schools  :  that  is  all.  In  substance,  and  in  the  real 
interest  of  a  genial,  live  personality,  Gellius,  for  instance, 
is  greatly  his  superior  :  in  fact,  far  better  Latin  essays 
could  be  safely  manufactured  in  either  Cambridge  to-day. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

As  to  Sallust,  the  text  traverses  the  favorable  judgments  of  some 
modern  critics,  and  of  the  ''  Silver  Age  "  in  Rome.  Martial  says 
Sallust  will  remain  "Primus  Romana  in  historia":  Tacitus  calls 
him  "  auctor  florentissimus."  Quintilian's  yet  more  surprising  enthu- 
siasm has  been  already  mentioned. 

The  style  of  Sallust  cannot  be  indicated  in  translation.  A  conven- 
ient though  not  critical  American  edition  of  the  two  monographs,  by 
Stuart,  includes  a  vocabulary.  Latin  students  who  escaped  Sallust  in 
their  school-days  will  find  him  instructive  and  not  uninteresting  to  their 
maturity. 

For  Nepos  there  are  school  editions  in  abundance.  The  Atticus 
biography  is,  of  course,  an  authentic  and  valuable  document,  on  a 
wholly  different  level  from  all  the  other  lives.  For  the  table  of  con- 
tents to  Cato's   "  Origines,"  also,  we  chance  to  be  indebted  to  Nepos. 


CHAPTER  XV 
MARCUS   TERENTIUS  VARRO 

The  long  life  of  Varro  makes  him  almost  a  link  between 
the  good  old  times  of  the  Scipios  and  the  Augustan  age.  His 
supreme  rank  as  an  antiquarian  and  general 
ii6-a7B.c.  scholar,  with  the   survival  of   two  volumes 

from  his  pen,  demand  for  him  a  share  of  space.  Even  his 
lost  verses  must  be  mentioned  with  hearty  regret.  Yet 
nothing  can  more  clearly  illustrate  the  prosaic  character  of 
Ciceronian  literature,  or  indeed  the  derivative  and  scholas- 
tic nature  of  Eoman  letters  generally,  than  the  relative 
prominence  of  such  a  career. 

Varro's  verses,  written  in  early  youth,  raise  once  more  a 
vexed  and  perhaps  insoluble  question,  for  they  are  called 
"  Saturae  Menippeae."  That  the  Grecian,  or  rather  Syrian, 
Menippos  was  a  Cynic  philosopher  of  the  third  century  be- 
fore Christ  is  agreed.  In  his  attacks  on  the  Epicureans  and 
others  he  dropped  into  occasional  verse,  chiefly  for  the  pur- 
poses of  parody  and  ridicule.  They  are  not  supposed  to  have 
been  dramatic.  Lucian  is  in  some  sense  his  disciple.  Among 
the  Varronian  fragments  most  are  metrical,  others  appear  to 
cf.  Quintiiian,      be  plain  prose.     The  sarcastic  tang  is  often 

*•'  ■'  95-  strong. 

We  have  nearly  six  hundred  fragments,  mostly  mere 
grammarians'  citations  for  a  rare  word  or  phrase.  E.g., 
"  I  don't  see  a  thing,  Varro  ;  this  longshanks  (longurio) 
in  front  of  me,  whoever  he  is,  shuts  off  the  light  so  ! " 
They  are  too  brief  to  show  any  dramatic  quality,  but  are  at 
least  often  in  the  form  of  dialogue.  The  poet's  own  name 
appears  in  titles,  as  Marcus's  Slave,  Double  Marcus,  etc., 

109 


110  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

or  he  is  directly  addressed.     Though  the  thonglit  is  almost 
always  homely,  the  form  is  at  times  really  poetical.  Thus  : 

"Not  gold,  not  treasures,  win  the  heart's  release  : 
The  cares  and  burdens  of  the  luind,  nor  mountains 
Of  Persian  wealth,  nor  Crassus'  splendid  halls  "... 
(Can  banish)     .     .     . 

This  clearly  anticipates  Horace's  favorite  strain. 

But,  bitterly  regretted,  this  curious  collection  is  hope- 
lessly lost.     The  clearest  glimpse  is  accorded  by  Gellius. 
lie  summarizes  the  satire  entitled  :    "  Thou 

Qellius,  xHI.,  II.     ,  ,        -  •        ^     •  „ 

knowest  not  what  late  evening  brings,  which 
he  thinks  the  daintiest  of  all.  The  general  subject  seems  to 
be  banqueting  as  a  fine  art.  The  first  aphorism  is  the 
graceful  one  that  the  diners  should  be  not  less  in  number 
than  the  Graces,  nor  more  than  the  Muses.  Guests  should 
be  chosen  neither  loquacious  nor  taciturn.  The  discussion 
should  not  be  mere  shop-talk,  yet  while  enjoyable  it  should 
have  a  certain  practical  value  :  saith  Roman  Varro.  Over 
the  dessert  Gellius  slides  off  into  a  discussion  on  the  proper 
Greek  and  older  Latin  words  for  sweetmeats.  Quite  pos- 
sibly Varro  had  done  so  himself,  philology  and  rhetoric 
being  never  very  remote  from  the  scholarly  Koman  poet's 
or  banqueter's  mind ! 

These  one  hundred  and  fifty  Menippean  ''books"  may 
or  may  not  include  the  four  books  of  Satires,  ten  of  poems, 
six  of  pseudo-tragedies,  also  mentioned. 

The  first  illustrated  Roman  work  which  is  recorded  was 
Varro 's  "Imagines,"  in  fifteen  books.  It  had  apparently  a 
hundred  plates,  with  seven  portraits  on  each.  The  divi- 
sion into  professions,  and  the  alternation  of  Roman  and 
foreign  worthies,  remind  us  of  Nepos's  cyclopaedia  of  biog- 
raphy. Besides  other  text,  each  picture  had  an  Elogium, 
or  metrical  epigram,  not  always  from  Varro's  own  hand. 

The  lost  encyclopaedic  works  of  Varro  cannot  even  be 


MARCUS   TERENTIUS   VARRO  111 

catalogued  here.  The  "  Antiqnitates  Rerum  Humanarum 
et  Divinarum  "  ran  to  forty-one  books,  the  nine  "  Disci- 
plinarum  Libri "  treated  grammar,  dialectic,  rhetoric, 
geometry,  arithmetic,  astrology,  music,  medicine,  archi- 
tecture. The  civil  law,  geography,  history  of  drama  and  the 
theatre,  were  included  among  Varro's  specialties.  Yet 
this  great  rival  of  Aristotle's  industry  survives  only  in  two 
modest  volumes. 

ON   THE   LATIN    LANGUAGE. 

Of  the  twenty-five  books  on  the  Latin  language  there 
remain  only  six,  V.-X.,  in  a  rather  tattered,  interpolated, 
and  corrupt  form.  They  inspire  us  with  much  respect  for 
Varro's  zeal,  energy,  and  patience,  very  little  for  the 
methods  and  theories  of  ancient  philology.  He  shows  little 
advance  in  sobriety  on  Plato's  "  Cratylos."  In  form,  of 
course,  he  in  no  way  approaches  any  Platonic  dialogue.  The 
book  is  simply  a  rather  discursive  dictionary  of  etymology, 
which  often  Jiits  the  truth  but  rarely  approaches  the  scien- 
tific method.  The  citations  of  older  authors,  the  real  and 
many-sided  learning  of  the  writer,  give  the  work  a  value  in 
other  than  etymological  fields. 

An  example  may  be  taken  at  random.  The  meaning  of 
the  word  latro,  robber,  he  thinks  can  be  carried  back 
through  freebooter,  mercenary,  guardsman,  to  king's  at- 
tendant. Varro  derives  it  from  latus,  side,  because  the 
latro  was  at  the  king's  side,  and  wore  the  sword  at  his  own  : 
i.e.,  "He  who  stands  beside,"  and  "the  side-arm  man." 
That  in  Greek  a  mercenary's  pay  is  called  latron  seems  to 
him  to  clinch  the  matter.  The  lighter  wit  of  the  interpo- 
lator adds,  that  "  anciently  the  royal  courtiers  were  called 
thieves  but  were  not,  while  now  the  conditions  are  re- 
versed." In  such  a  frivolous  frame  of  mind,  indeed,  this 
work  of  Varro's  as  a  whole  is  best  enjoyed. 


112  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 


ON   AGRICULTURE. 


"  I  would  rather  have  elaborated  at  leisure,  would  now 
fain  write  more  fully,  Fundania,  that  which  I  shall  here 
Rerum  Rusti-  ^^^  fortli  summarily,  realizing  that  haste  is 
carum  Libri  needful  :  for  as  the  saying  is,  if  man  is  a 
HI.,  37  B.C.  bubble,  so  much  the  more  is  an  old  man. 
For  my  eightieth  year  admonishes  me  to  gather  up  my 
baggage,  ere  I  depart  out  of  life." 

The  three  books  on  Agriculture  thus  genially  begun  do 
not,  after  all,  show  signs  of  nervous  haste.  Only  the  first 
volume  is  dedicated  to  his  wife  Fundania,  the  second  and 
third  to  men  otherwise  little  known. 

Varro  imitates  his  departed  friend  Cicero  in  using  the 
dialogue  form,  and  also  in  setting  a  new  scene  for  each 
book.  Of  dramatic  skill  there  is  little  indeed.  The 
machinery  creaks  and  all  but  breaks  down.  The  divisions 
of  the  subject  are  pedantic  and  over-elaborate.  The  life- 
long fondness  for  punning  etymologies,  and  for  "  old  buried 
lore "  generally,  breaks  out  at  every  turn.  Yet  few  can 
fail  to  gain  renewed  love  for  the  subject,  love  and  admira- 
tion for  the  sturdy,  patriotic,  learned  writer,  food  for 
thought  and  stuff  for  mirth,  from  this  little-read  classic. 

We  are  heartily  glad  that  Caesar  smilingly  "  pardoned" 
Varro  for  taking  Pompey's  side,  and  sent  hira  back  to  his 
books,  even  put  him  in  charge  of  the  state  libraries  :  doubly 
glad  that,  even  when  the  name  of  the  old  sage  at  seventy- 
three  was  placed  on  Antonius's  bloody  proscription-list,  he 
was  smuggled  away  and  finally  saved.  With  him  we  have 
passed  the  portal  into  the  age  of  Augustus,  and  must  turn 
back  to  the  poets:  for  this  century  of  violence  included 
the  short  career  of  two  world-poets,  the  two  clearest  and 
most  original  voices  that  ever  uttered,  in  Koman  speech, 
a  message  to  the  after-time. 


MARCUS  TEEENTIUS  VARRO  113 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Though  Varro  must  always  be  aside  from  popular  interest,  both  his 
books  should  be  far  more  generally  known  to  classical  students.  The 
"De  Agricultura"  is  united  with  Cato's  in  the  edition  of  Keil.  The 
"  De  Lingua  Latina  "  is  learnedly  treated  by  Spengel.  The  fragments 
of  the  "  Saturaj  "  are  added  by  Biicheler  to  his  edition  of  Petronius. 
The  few  c/05'ia  cited  from  the  "Imagines"  are  collected  by Bahrens, 
Vol.  VI.,  pp.  295-06.  For  the  last  two  entries  see  also  Merry's  "  Frag- 
ments of  Latin  Poetry."  For  bold  attempts  to  reconstruct  some  of  the 
"  Saturae  Menippeae  "  from  the  rather  meagre  remnants,  the  student 
is  referred  to  Ribbeck,  "  Romische  Dichtung,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  242-65, 
and  also  Mommsen,  "  Romische  Geschichte,"  Book  V.,  chapter  XII. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

CATULLUS    AND  HIS  FRIENDS 

The  poetic  instinct,  if  it  exist,  in  a  whole  folk,  must 
reveal  itself  in  brief  flights  of  song,  in  lyric.  Such  utter- 
ance requires  no  theatre  of  stone  or  wood,  no  stated  audi- 
ence, no  bookish  culture,  not  even  the  ability  to  read  or 
write.  The  iynprovisatori  of  the  Tuscan  valleys  are  often 
illiterates.  Uhland  was  a  learned  antiquarian,  but  Johanna 
Ambrosius  is  a  toiling  peasant.  The  older  ballads  of  Scot- 
land and  the  Border  sang  themselves  out  of  a  people's 
heart.  Nothing  of  this  kind  can  be  descried  among  the 
Latins.  Their  love  and  hate  seem  wingless.  Perhaps  a 
Sappho,  or  even  an  Archilochos,  born  there,  would  have 
remained  mute  and  inglorious  under  Cato's  frown. 

But  the  Social  War  broke  down  the  barriers  of  Roman 
citizenship,  which  was  now  extended  through- 
out Italy.  It  ended,  also,  the  narrow  pro- 
vincialism of  the  Roman  speech,  so  boldly  confessed, 
Pro  Archia,  X.,  indeed  overstated,  by  Cicero  a  quarter-cen- 
*3-  tury  later.     Latin  now  everywhere   swiftly 

supplanted  the  Oscan  and  other  spoken  Italic  languages. 
Over  the  Keltic  dialects  it  must  have  made  a  truly  Roman 
conquest.  In  general  it  rendered  every  free  Italian  a 
Roman  in  spirit  as  in  law.  Thus  Rome's  most  signal  de- 
feat brought  her  renewed  vitality.  This  is  especially  nota- 
ble in  literature. 

The  plain  of  Lombardy,  the  great  valley  of  the  Po,  was 
technically  a  foreign  province.     Probably  its  people  were 

114 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS    FRIENDS  115 

already  a  blend  of  Keltic  with  Latin  stock.  From  this 
region  came  a  sur^Drising  number  of  leading  Roman  an- 
Supra,  pp.  49,  thors.  Cascilius,  and  Nepos,  we  have  men- 
'°7-  tioned   already.      The   precise  descent   and 

stock  of  a  Catullus,  a  Virgil,  a  Livy,  can  never  be  known  : 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  Home  absorbed  the  ener- 
gies not  only  of  Italy  but  of  the  Mediterranean  world. 
While  to  the  last  the  imperial  mint-mark  is  stamped  on 
every  Latin  utterance,  yet  the  gold  of  genius  is  drawn 
from  many  veins. 

The  one  poet  whose  clear,  importunate  ''lyric  cry  "is 
still  heard,  out  of  that  age,  came  from  Verona.  Yet  Catul- 
0.  Valerius  Ca-  ^"'^  Certainly  appeared,  in  his  day,  not  alone, 
tuiius,  84  (?)-  but  as  one  of  a  brilliant,  audacious  ffroup  of 
"  young  Eomans."  Furthermore,  this  move- 
ment was  in  large  part  a  scholarly  one.  In  oratory  and 
rhetoric  it  was  a  reversion  to  Attic  simplicity,  with  Lysias 
as  a  model,  against  the  Asiatic  floridness  which  Cicero,  on 
the  whole,  shared  with  his  dethroned  rival  Hortensius. 
In  poetry  the  same  men  studied  the  finished  forms,  approved 
the  briefer  compass,  of  Alexandrian  art,  ridiculing  the 
ponderous  mass  of  Ennian  or  NaBvian  epic,  as  Callimachos 
had  assailed  Apollonios  the  Rhodian,  the  composer  of  epics. 

In  politics,  of  course,  these  young  radicals  attacked  the 
great  men  of  the  day,  Pompey  and  Cssar,  though  Catullus 
finally  had  to  make  his  peace  with  the  latter.  That  the 
rather  pompous  and  arrogant  old  age  of  Cicero  was  also 
Cf  infra  12  embittered  by  their  ridicule  is  proven  by 
passages  in  his  last  books.  In  oratory  at 
least  Brutus  was  one  of  this  new  school. 

Catullus  was  probably  far  above  his  foi'gotten  brethren 
in  genius.  In  his  brief  roll  of  twenty-three  hundred  verses 
there  is  quite  sufficient  evidence  of  Alexandrian  influences. 
But  it  is  the  elemental  cry  of  his  own  savage,  sensitive  youth 
that  is  deathless. 


116  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

"  I  hate  and  love: — no  more  I  know, 
Save  that  I'm  racked  with  mortal  woe." 

His  hatred,  it  niiiy  be  said  at  once,  is  usually  expressed 
in  words  so  foul  as  to  be  utterly  unfit  for  repetition.  It 
is  astonishing  that  so  true  a  poet  could  cast  such  vile 
thoughts  in  verse-forms.  We  are  disposed  to  judge  by 
them  the  age  quite  as  much  as  the  man. 

Catullus  squandered  several  of  his  few  years  on  one  law- 
less and  consuming  passion.     The  famous  "  Lesbia"  seems 
to  have  been,  beyond  serious  doubt,  Clodia,  the  beautiful 
and  shameless  sister  of  Cicero's  enemy,  Clodius.     If  so,  Cic- 
ero may  have  first  brought  the  lovers  together,  by  refusing 
Gaul  as  his  own  proconsular  province,  and 
handing  it  on,  instead,  to  Lentulus,  Clodia's 
husband,  who  in  Cicero's  consular  year  was  praetor,  that  is, 
next  in  official  rank.     Hence  Catullus's  wealthy  parents 
Suetonius,  Cae-      doubtless  entertained  Lentulus  and  his  wife, 
sar,  73.  j^g  they  certainly  did  in  later  years  the  great 

Julius,  on  his  winter  circuits  through  the  province.     In 
her  affections  the  poet  was  apparently  af  ter- 
.  supra,  p.  77.    ^yg^j.jj  supplanted  by  that  Cselius  Eufus  whom 
Cicero  later  defended. 

In  57-56  Catullus  served  in  Bithynia  on  the  staff  of  Mem- 
mius,  whose  greed  sent  the  youth  home  with  empty  pock- 
ets, as  he  went.     Some  lyrics   in   cheerful 

Carm.,  10.  .,..,. 

tones  were  certainly  written  after  his  return, 
but  he  cannot  have  lived  much  longer.  The  early  death 
of  the  poet  is  foreshadowed  in  his  despairing  verses,  and  is 
referred  to  in  Ovid's  elegy  on  Tibullus,  who  will  meet 
in  Elysium  kindred  spirits  of  like  fate.     Among  them 

"  Thou,  oh  learned  Catullus,  thy  young  brows  ivy-encircled. 
Bringing   thy  Calvus   with    thee,  wilt   to    receive    him 
appear. ' ' 
This  "  learning,"  like  the  "wit"  of  Queen  Anne's   day, 

consists   mainly  in  careful    mastery  of  classic  forms  and 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS    FRIENDS  117 

myths.  Ciitullus  certainly  has,  in  his  lyrics,  no  such  re- 
condite mythic  lore  as  Callimachos,  or  Horace.  He  had 
studied,  and  even  translated,  the  famous  Sapphic  stanza, 
with  its  sudden  pulse-leap  midway  in  the  verse  : 

"  Blest  to  me  he  seems  as  a  god  immortal 
He  who  face  to  face  as  he  sits  may  hear  thee 
Sweetly  murmur,  listens  in  eager  longing 
Unto  thy  laughter. " 

But  the  next  quatrain  of  Catullus's  poem  names  Lesbia, 
and  is  of  course  his  own  composition.  In  Catullus,  as  in 
all  true  singers,  the  metre  chosen  seems  the  only  possible 
form  for  the  thought.  Both  his  grand  passions,  love  and 
hate,  were  most  forcefully  uttered  in  a  livelier  form  of 
'Miendecasyllables,"  not  grouped  in  stanzas,  and  with  the 
skip  at  the  second  foot  instead  of  the  third.  Of  this 
rhythm  every  modern  echo,  even  Tennyson's,  though 

"All  composed  in  a  metre  of  Catullus," 

is  notoriously  faint  and  far  indeed.  Sir  Theodore  Martin, 
prince  of  verse-translators,  gives  it  up  in  comic  despair, 
after  a  few  ventures  like 

"  Whom  shall  I  give  this  pretty  little  book  to, 
New  and  fresh  from  the  polish  of  the  gritstone  ?  " 

Yet  lovers  of  Latin  agree,  that  into  this  jaunty,  monoto- 
nous line  Catullus  somehow  puts  music,  variety,  tender- 
ness, biting  force,  the  full  natural  utterance  of  his  two 
chief  moods,  in  which  Heine  is  his  nearest  kinsman. 
Friendship  is  with  him  but  a  phase  of  passionate  love.  We, 
however,  crave  some  more  familiar  English  lilt,  as  the 
ungallant  poet  rails  at  a  mischievous  hussy  : 

"  Give  back  the  book,  thou  shameless  dame,     • 
The  book,  thou  dame  devoid  of  shame  !  " 


118  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

or  with  half-hidden  pride  and  roguish  banter  offers  his 
sheaf  of  brief  lyrics,  his  "dainty  little  book  and  new,"  to 
Nepos,  himself  a  bard  of  passion,  though  he 

"  Into  three  tomes  had  dared  to  cast 
The  story  of  all  ages  past  : 
— Learned,  oh  Jupiter  !  and  vast !  " 

In  hendecasyllables  are  the  happy  poems  on  Lesbia's  count- 
less kisses,  the  odes  to  her  pet  sparrow  living  and  dead, 
and  indeed  most  of  the  unforgettable  lyrics.  Catullus 
and  his  friends  would  have  little  patience  with  our  well- 
beloved  virtue  of  reticence.     Rather  they  cry  : 

' '  Whate'er  thy  flame  may  be, 
Or  good  or  evil,  tell  it  me. 
Thy  flame  and  thee  to  heaven  on  high 
In  dainty  verse  I'll  glorify." 

As  Ovid  has  told  us,  Catullus's  real  heart's-brother  is 
not  Nepos,  but  Licinins  Calvus.  After  a  day  spent  with 
him  in  scribbling  and  comparing  erotic  verses,  he  writes  : 


Carm.,  50. 


*'  Lieinius,  from  your  wit  and  grace 
So  feverisli  homeward  did  I  pace, 
No  food  consoled  me  thus  distrest, 
Nor  slumber  closed  my  eyes  to  rest. 
I  tost  and  turned  the  livelong  night. 
Eager  to  see  the  dawning  light, 
Only  once  more  with  you  to  be. 
And,  speaking,  hear  you  answer  me." 

A  calmer  comradeship,  and  the  merry  poverty  of  extrava- 
gant youth,  is  revealed  in  a  curious  note  of  invitation, 
which  Martial  honors  with  close  mimicry.  Perhaps  Fabul- 
lus  had  strained  a  slight  acquaintance  and  begged  the 
dinner. 

"The  days  that  pass  shall  be  but  few, 
Fabullus,  ere  with  me  you  dine, 


Carm.,  13. 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS    FKIENDS  119 

And  richly.     Only  bring  with  you 
Abundant  viands,  salt,  and  wine, 

Some  charming  girl,  of  jests  no  end. 
You  might  go  farther  and  fare  worse  : 

But,  for  Catullus,  your  '  dear  friend,' 
'Tis  only  cobwebs  fill  his  purse." 

The  poems  thus  far  mentioned  are  all  in  the  eleven- 
syllable  verse.  For  a  more  pensive  key  Catullus  uses  a 
less  swift  iambic  or  Alexandrine  line,  not  unlike  our  blank 
verse  in  its  effect.  The  best-known  example  is  the  poem 
on  Sirniio,  the  lovely  peninsula  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
Laffo  di  Garda.  The  later  Roman  structures  whose  ruins 
are  now  seen  there  may  have  displaced  the  summer  abode 
of  the  poet's  family.  There  are  few  tenderer  words  of 
home-coming. 

"  Sirmio,  pearl  of  all  the  capes  and  isles 
Carm.,  31.  ,,     .  „       .  -,  ,    , 

Or  in  pellucid  lakes  or  savage  sea. 

What  is  more  blest,  than  when,  from  toil  released. 

The  spirit  drops  her  burdens,  and  outworn 

With  alien  labor  to  our  own  hearthstone 

We  come,  and  slumber  on  the  longed-for  couch  !  " 

Similar  in  rhythm  and  tone  is  the  dedication  to  Castor 

and  Pollux,  the  patron  saints  of  mariners,  of  the  yacht 

in  which  he  had  safely  returned  from  Bithyn- 

Carm..  4-  ^^^  ^^^^  wliich  had  been  laboriously  brought 

up  the  Po  and  Mincio  to  dear,  billowy  Benacus, 

It  need  not  be  supposed,  then,  that  Lesbia's  lover  died 
of  a  broken  heart,  or  cut  short  his  years  by  a  desperate 
struggle  to  drown  grief  in  dissipation.  lu  any  case,  he 
faced  death  as  fearlessly  as  he  did  life.  In  immortality  he 
has  no  shred  of  belief.  It  is  amid  Lesbia's  warmest  kisses 
that  he  utters  what  are  perhaps  his  most  famous  lines  : 

•*  Each  sun  that  sets  at  dawn  returns. 
For  us,  when  our  brief  candle  burns, 
One  endless  night  of  slumber  waits." 


120  THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 

The  first  sixty  poems  of  the  extant  collection  are  all  very 
brief,  chiefly  in  hendecasylhibles,  or  other  liglit,  swift 
measures.  The  little  roll  dedicated,  in  the  opening  poem 
already  cited,  to  IS' epos  included  not  more  than  these,  per- 
haps less.  There  seems  to  be  no  principle  of  arrangement 
whatever. 

Numbers  65-116  make  up  a  separate  collection,  being  all 
in  elegiac  couplets.  They  were  not,  however,  written  later 
than  the  iambics  and  hendecasyDables.  Poems  even  from 
the  early  and  happier  Lesbia-period  are  found  in  this  group 
also.  Tlie  rhythm  is  somewhat  labored,  the  utterance  is 
less  spontaneous.  Yet  often  it  fits  the  thought,  as  in  the 
attempt  to  console  the  bereft  Licinius. 

' '  If  there  is  au^ht,  my  Cal  vus,  that  out  of  our 
Cariii..96.  .     ^      '       \ 

sorrowing  onerea 

Unto  the  voiceless  dead  grateful  or  welcome  may  be, 
When  with  the  hunger  of  grief  we  recall  our  former  affection, 

When  for  the  ties  we  lament,  broken,  that  once  were  our  own, 
Though  Quintilia  grieve  at  her  own  untimely  departure, 

Over  thy  faithful  love  greater,  be  sure,  is  her  joy." 

Yet  the  hope  which  he  suggests  for  his  friend  he  himself 
put  firmly  aside,  not  merely  in  Lesbia's  arms  but  at  his 
brother's  lonely  grave  in  the  Troad.  Hailing  in  vain  the 
silent  ashes,  he  bestows  the  poor  gifts  that  usage  demands  : 

"  Receive  them,  wet  with  loving  tears,  I  pray  ; 
''       '  — And  so  farewell  forever  and  for  aye." 

The  poems  numbered  61-64  are  relatively  long,  and  re- 
quire separate  mention.  61,  in  forty-seven  swift  stanzas 
of  five  lines  each,  is  the  chief  classical  example  of  the 
Ejnthalaniium  or  Marriage-song.  The  tone  is  light,  and 
some  portions  are  too  free  in  expression,  even  for  such  an 
occasion.  Yet  it  is  a  gem  unrivalled  in  its  kind.  He  who 
could  so  glorify  the  nuptials  of  his  friends,  Manlius  Tor- 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS   FRIENDS  121 

quatus  and  Julia,  could  not  have  utterly  missed  the  path 
to  earthly  happiness  for  himself.  Certainly,  as  an  artist, 
this  truly  Roman  master-singer  proves  his  right  to  every 
Hellenic  suggestion  which  he  chooses  to  make  his  own.  The 
movement,  the  merriment,  the  joyonsness  can  be  shared 
by  every  sympathetic  reader.  Especially  tender  and  truth- 
ful is  the  expression  of  hope, 

"  Soon  my  eyes  shall  see,  mayhap, 
Carm.,  6i,  vss.  Young  Torquatus  on  the  lap 

316-230.  o  -I  r 

Translation  Of  his  mother,  as  he  stands 

of  Sir  Theo-  Stretching  out  his  tiny  hands, 

dore  nartln.  ^^^  j^.^  ^.^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^j^jj^ 

Half  open  on  his  father  smile. " 

Next  is  a  far  more  formal  hymn  in  sixty-seven  liquid 
hexameters.     It  is  in  form  a  choral  dialogue,  between  a 
band   of  youths  and  one   of  virgins,   each 
arm.,    2.  gtanza    closing   in   a    line    with    quadruple 

invocation  of  Hymen.  The  maidens  bewail  the  cruel 
doom  that  snatches  the  bride  from  her  mother's  arms.  The 
youths,  naturally,  have  the  first  and  last  word,  urging  the 
happiness,  the  naturalness,  the  necessity  of  wedlock. 

The  next  poem,  entitled  Atys,  is  by  some  critics  called 
the  finest  in  the  language.  In  its  special  class,  of  minia- 
ture epic  or  sustained  narrative  lyric,  no 
other  has  such  dsemonic  force.  If  it  had  no 
Greek  original,  then  Catullus  in  Asia,  and  especially  amid 
the  lovely  glens,  peaks,  and  pine-forests  of  Ida,  had  re- 
ceived a  direct  Hellenic  inspiration,  whose  results  may  be 
compared  with  the  choral  splendors  of  the  "nippolytos,''or 
the  loveliest  harmonies  of  the  Initiates  in  the  Aristophanic 
''  Frogs."  Yet  the  subject  is  not  merely  painful  but  ab- 
normal, and  anything  but  universal  in  its  interest.  The 
youthful  acolyte  of  Cybele,  who  mutilates  himself  irrevoc- 
ably in  his  frenzied  enthusiasm,  and  then  in  a  moment  of 


123  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

sanity  impiously  laments  the  home,  comrades,  gymnasium, 
race-course,  all  the  joyous  social  life  to  which  he  can  never 
return,  is  far  indeed  from  our  life.  We  can  only  vaguely 
liope  that  the  returning  frenzy  was  life-lasting,  and  echo 
the  closing  prayer 

"Goddess  imperious,  Cybele  goddess,  mistress 
Vb8.  pi-ga.  -        «■  T^•     3 

holy  of  Dindymos, 

Far  be  from   my  abode,  thy   madness,    mighty   queen,   afar 

from  us." 

Those  who  have  known  familiarly  and  learned  to  love,  and 
dread,  the  forest-clad  heights  that  yet  frown  upon  the 
Trojan  plain,  can  never  wholly  escape  the  spell  of  this 
marvellous  poem,  in  whose  very  movement  the  mystic  awe 
still  lingers.  Memories  of  youthful  Wander-years  will  al- 
ways respond  to  such  strains  as 

..."  And  must   I  ever  on  the  snow-clad 
Vss.  70-71.  ■  t  T^        • 

regions  of  green  Ida  pine, 

And  linger  on  'neath  Phrygia's  frowning  peaks  while  weary  life 

is  mine?" 

Longest  of  all  the  poems  is  the  "  Wedding  of  Peleus  and 
Thetis,'*  in  four  hundred  and  seven  hexameters.  This  is 
also  masterly,  at  least  in  detail.  The  digres- 
sion describing  the  embroidered  coverlet  of 
the  bridal  couch  takes  up  more  than  half  the  poem  :  vss. 
50-2G6.  However,  the  adventures  of  Ariadne,  there  de- 
picted, are  quite  as  interesting  as  the  main  theme. 

A  curious  oversight  has  been  noted.  Peleus  first  beheld 
Thetis  when  she  and  her  sister-Nereids  rose  to  gaze  at  the 
Argo,  the  first  ship  tliat  ever  troubled  the  ^gean  waters. 
For  navigation  to  develop,  for  Cretan  Minos  to  become 
lord  of  the  sea  and  conquer  Athens,  finally  for  him  and  his 
daughter  Ariadne  to  pass  into  legend  and  become  subjects 
of  a  work  of  art,  would   require  a  courtship  of  several 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS   FRIENDS  133 

centuries  :  immaterial  to  divine  Thetis,  but  serious  indeed 
for  her  mortal  lover. 

The  solution  is,  however,  absurdly  simple,  if  we  may 
suppose  that  the  gods  can  foresee  the  future.  So  ^neas's 
shield,  an  imitation  of  Achilles's,  contained  scenes  from 
later  Roman  history.  This  explanation  of  Catullus'  poem 
is  the  more  plausible,  because  the  real  culmination  of  the 
little  epic  or  idyll  is  the  prophetic  song  of  the  Fates,  set 
to  the  whir  of  their  own  spindles,  foretelling  the  whole 
life  of  the  hero  Achilles,  who  is  to  spring  from  the  wed- 
ding that  day  celebrated. 

There  are  echoes  of  many  Greek  lyres  in  this  poem,  most 
of  all,  perhaps,  reminiscences  from  the  art  of  Apollonios 
the  Rhodian.  Yet  it  is  not  believed  to  be  a  translation. 
Indeed,  the  cumbrous  structure,  "  sphere  in  sphere,"  is 
hardly  equalled,  even  in  the  awkward  Hesiodic  *'  Shield 
of  Heracles,"  and  betrays  the  lyric  singer,  essaying  a  task 
too  huge  for  his  simpler  art. 

In  several  of  these  larger  poems  Catullus  has  justified 
Ovid's  adjective  doctus  (learned),  by  recondite  allusions  and 
conceits  little  to  our  taste,  but  in  this  especially  we  realize 
that  the  exquisite  parts  are  better  than  the  effect  of  the 
whole,  while  even  they  are  far  inferior  in  force  to  the  keen 
shafts  of  scorn,  or  the  briefer  winged  missives  of  love,  sped 
by  this  true  Italian  poet.  He  more  than  all  others,  as 
Professor  Sellar  has  said,  showed  what  youth  can  accom- 
plish, and  what  it  cannot.  In  the  unashamed  audacity  of 
youth  Catullus  stands  forth  forever,  fiercest  of  haters  as 
of  lovers. 

The  recognized  leader  of  this  youthful  school  was  not 
Catullus,  but  a  namesake,  Valerius  Cato,  who  also  came 
from  the  North.  He  was  both  grammarian  and  poet:  not 
an  incongruous  union  in  Rome.  Whether  he  was  the  real 
author  of  the  poem  ''Dirae,"  transmitted  as  Virgil's,  is  still 
debatable.     Like  that  author   he   celebrated   his  beloved 


83-47  B.C. 


124  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

under  the  name  of  Lydia,  and  had  lost  his  estates  in  the 
reign  of  terror  under  Sulla.  The  latter  event  is  promi- 
Cf.  Virgil,  Jient  in  the  poem,  and  may  have  caused  the 

Bucolics,  i.        assignment  of  it  to  Virgil. 

Calvus,  a  short-lived  lyric  poet  like  his  friend,  has  been 

mentioned   repeatedly.      He   was    especially   brilliant   as 

an  orator.     Praise  of  his  eloquence,   and  a 

gibe  on  his  diminutive  stature,  are  combined 

Catullus,  ill  ^  merry  five-line  poem  of  Catullus's.     His 

carin.,53.        father,  Licinius  Macer,  a  careful  historian, 

had  been   impeached   by   Cicero  for  extortion  in  66,  and 

escaped  only  by  suicide.     This  must  have  sharpened  the 

antagonism  between  the  pair  of  poet-friends  and  the  great 

orator.     The  little  greeting  to  Cicero  from 

arm.,  49.  Catullus  secms  full  of  gratitude,  extravagant 

praise,  and  humility  :  but  the  last  is  surely  overdone. 
Moreover,  by  a  sort  of  refrain  these  verses  are  linked  with 
two  of  Catullus's  most  audacious  lampoons.  The  circum- 
stances of  the  day  may  have  made  this  missive  anything 
but  agreeable,  desj^ite  the  assurance 

"Most  eloquent,  Marcus  TuIIius, 
Art  thou  of  the  sons  of  Romulus." 

To  another   versifier,     Cornificius,   our  poet    in   utter 
heart-break  complains  of  his  silence,  and  begs  : 

"  Give  me  a  word  of  greeting,  what  you  please, 
Sadder  than  tear-drops  of  Simonides." 

A  far  happier  epistle  goes  from    Catullus   in  Verona  to 

Caecilius  in  Novo  Como,  as  an  invitation  for  a  visit.   There 

are  teasing  references  to  a  girl,  herself  ''more 

arm.,  35.  leurned  than    the    Sapphic    muse,"    whose 

clinging  arms  may  detain  the  expected  guest. 

Not  all  these  fading  names,  to  which  several  more  could 
be  added,  were  ever  important,  but  at  least  a  numerous 


CATULLUS,    AND    HIS    FKIEXDS  125 

friendly  band  of  quick-witted  versifiers,  chiefly  Transpu- 
danes,  can  be  pleasantly  descried.  Helvius  Cinna,  like 
Calvus,  was  of  more  purely  Roman  and  noble  stock.  He 
Carm.,  lo;  35;  scrved  with  Catullus  in  Bithynia.  His  chief 
95.  poem,  "  Zmyrna,"  was  an  elaborate  idyll  on 

an  obscure  mythical  subject.  Finally,  as  a  slave  and 
freedman  in  the  Cinna  family  we  hear  of  Parthenios,  a 
Greek,  a  late  member  of  the  Alexandrian  school.  His  per- 
sonal relations  with  Eoman  poets  can  be  traced  as  far 
down  as  Virgil  and  Gallus.  Through  him  Catullus  may 
have  received  the  doctriua  of  which  we  are  glad  he  had  no 
more.  "Berenice's  Hair,"  in  particular,  is  Catullus's 
labored  translation  of  a  lost  poem  by  Calli- 
"     '  machos,    full  of   courtly   adulation  and  ill- 

placed  ingenuity. 

But  from  all  this  group  one  clear  voice  reaches  us.  This 
surely  is  no  accident,  but  indeed  a  survival  of  the  fittest. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

There  are  metrical  translations  of  all  or  nearly  all  Catullus's  poems 
by  Sir  Theodore  Martin,  James  Cranstoun  and  Robinson  Ellis.  The 
latter  indeed,  in  "  three  learned  tomes  "  has  given  a  variorum  Latin 
text,  an  exhaustive  comment,  and  a  translation  "  in  the  metres  of 
the  original."  The  latter  is  not  always  easy  either  to  scan  or  to 
construe.  Both  the  otliers  omit,  or  soften  beyond  recognition, 
the  more  savage  lampoons.  The  few  versions  by  Professor  Jebb  and 
Goldwin  Smith  leave  a  lively  desire  for  more.  See  also  the  paper  con- 
tributed by  the  present  author,  in  Macmillmi's  3Iagazine  for  January, 
1897. 

Vexed  questions  as  to  Catullus's  life  are  avoided  in  the  text.  The 
especial  stamping-ground  of  polemic  is  Carmen  68,  a  complicated 
elegiac  construction  full  of  subjective  allusions.  Jerome  sets  Catul- 
lus's birth  and  death  87-57  b.c,  but  there  are  undoubted  references  to 
events  as  late  as  55,  e.g.^  Caesar's  invasion  of  Germany  and  Britain 
(Carm.,  xi.,  11-12). 

There  is  an  excellent  American  edition  of  Catullus  by  Merrill. 


CHAPTER   XVII 
LUCRETIUS 

Catullus's  life  is  revealed  to  us  in  his  intensely  per- 
sonal lyric.  Indeed,  his  loves  and  hates,  his  longing  in 
absence  or  his  exultant  home-coming,  his  fleeting  earthly 
bliss  and  despair  of  more  lasting  happiness,  alone  interest 
vitally  the  hearer,  or  the  singer. 

The  other  surviving  poet  of  that  stormy  age  is  person- 
ally all  but  unknown.  He  wishes  to  share  with  us  only 
the  elemental  hopes  and  fears  of  rational  humanity.  He 
is  in  touch  with  Catullus  at  one  point.  Lucretius,  also, 
believes  that  man  has  no  eternal  life,  no  spiritual  essence, 
no  need  to  concern  himself  with  aught  beyond  his  own 
passing  day.  But  while  to  Catullus  that  is  the  bitter  truth, 
to  be  drowned  in  the  wine  of  Lesbians  kisses,  for  Lucretius 
it  is  a  central,  nay,  the  central  doctrine  out  of  which 
happiness,  or  contentment,  may  be  won.  This  austere 
consolation  is  to  wipe  tlie  tears  from  all  eyes.  It  is  a  very 
gentle  admonition  on  the  folly  of  grief,  when  he  says,  first 
quoting  the  common  cry  : 

Book  III,  vss.       "'The  joyous   home  shall   welcome  thee  no 
894  W.  more. 

Thy  noble  wife  and  well-lov'd  children  ne'er, 
Running  to  be  the  first  thy  kiss  to  snatch, 
Shall  with  a  silent  joy  thy  bosom  fill  : 
For  one  disastrous  day  has  wrested  all 
The  many  precious  things  of  life  from  thee.* 

Yet  this  they  add  not  :  '  Nor  shalt  thou  again 
By  any  craving  for  them  be  assailed.' 

126 


LUCRETIUS  127 

Could  they  but  see  this  rightly,  and  conform 
Thereto  their  words,  then  would  they  free  themselves 
From  that  great  anguish  and  distress  of  mind." 

Even  his  picture  of  the  universe  is  drawn  purely  to 
convince  men  of  their  own  material  and  finite  nature,  to 
remove  from  our  thoughts  all  trace  of  foolish  hope,  and 
yet  more  of  corroding  dread,  as  to  any  other  worlds,  or 
superhuman  beings.  Many,  if  not  most  men,  find  a  lofty 
consolation,  compounded  far  more  of  hope  than  of  fear,  in 
the  belief  that  the  wrongs  of  the  present  life  are  elsewhere 
to  be  set  right.  Lucretius,  however,  certainly  felt  that 
the  terror  of  future  judgment  and  punishment  is  the  chief 
bugaboo  and  curse  of  existence.  He  was  convinced,  also, 
that  he  could  efface  such  superstition  absolutely  from  any 
clear,  courageous,  and  attentive  mind.  Thanks,  above  all 
else,  to  Epicures, 

Book  I.,  v«8.  **  Religion  now  is  trampled  under  foot 

78  ft.  In  turn.     His  victory  lifts  us  to  the  skies. 

This  do  I  fear,  lest  you  perchance  suppose 
Impious  the  grounds  of  reason  which  we  tread, 
Sinful  the  path.     Nay,  all  too  oft  that  same 
Religion  bore  unholy  wicked  deeds  "  : 

and  the  slaying  of  Iphigenia  is  thrillingly  portrayed, 

"  A  stainless  maid,  who  at  her  bridal  hour 
Fell,  a  sad  victim,  by  her  father's  stroke.     .     .     . 
Such  crimes  religion  could  suggest  to  men. " 

The  atomic  theory  of  Democritos,  the  ethics  of  Epi- 
curos,  the  impossibility  of  life  beyond  death,  the  practical 
non-existence  of  deity,  are  set  forth  with  power,  earnest- 
ness, logical  consistency,  and  what  then  passed  for  scientific 
learning,  in  these  seven  thousand  hexameters.  The  attempt 
is  made  to  explain  consistently  all  physical  phenomena, 
including  the  origin,  development,  and  eventual  destruc- 


128  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

tion,  of  life,  and  even  of  the  world  itself.  The  philosophic 
breadth  of  scope,  the  benevolent  purpose,  at  least,  are  evi- 
dent. The  imaginative  beauty  of  literary  art  we  might  be 
less  confident  to  find.  But  in  truth  this  austere  rhythmic 
essay,  On  the  Nature  (or  Origin)  of  Things,  is  the  chief 
creative  feat  of  Roman  imagination.  The  minor  charms 
of  the  poem,  its  digressions,  episodes,  illustrations,  would 
alone  suffice  to  raise  Lucretius  to  Virgil's  side.  A  simple 
list  becomes  beautiful,  even  pathetic.  Thus  to  exemplify 
the  microscopic  smallness  of  the  atoms,  he  says  : 

Book  I.,  V8B.  "  So  after  many  circlings  of  the  sun 

3"«  «•  A  ring  beneath  the  finger  wears  away 

In  use,  the  drip  of  water  from  the  eaves 
Hollows  a  stone,  the  ploughshare's  iron  curve 
Invisibly  decreases  in  the  fields, 
We  see  the  pavement  worn  away  beneath 
The  people's  feet,     .     .     . 

But  yet  the  particles 
Which  at  each  instant  still  therefrom  depart 
Envious  Nature  will  not  let  us  view." 

In  particular,  the  latter  half  of  the  Fifth  Book  is  the  most 
vivid  and  fascinating  ideal  picture  ever  drawn  of  man's 
origin  and  progress  from  the  cave  to  culture.  At  times 
we  hear  Darwin's  very  tones  : 

Book  V.  vss.  "  And  many  genera  of  animals 

855-59.  Must  then  have  perished  utterly  and  passed, 

Since  all  we  see,  that  breathe  life-giving  air, 
By  craft,  by  valor,  or,  again,  by  speed, 
Saved  and  protected  from  the  first  their  race." 

Still  other  passages  there  are,  notably  the  opening  forty 
lines,  in  which  the  pious,  patriotic  Eoman  seems,  at  least, 
to  forget  altogether  liis  disconsolate  atheistic  materialism. 
Here  Venus  and  her  lover  Mars,  the  divine  ancestors  of 
the  yEneadse,  are  rapturously  portrayed.    The  poet  indeed 


LUCRETIUS  1:^0 

mnst  have  had,  as  Tennyson  makes  him  assert  that  he  did, 
some  double  purpose.  Venns  may  be  also  a  symbol  of 
cosmic  love,  attraction,  even  gravitation.  She,  and  Mars 
as  strife,  repulsion,  the  other  source  of  all  life  and  force, 
may  have  as  parabolic  and  mystic  a  meaning  as  the  Platonic 
Eros  and  Eris.  To  the  conservative  Koman,  however,  this 
invocation  would  seem  absolutely  orthodox.  A  later  pas- 
sage gives  us  the  key. 

Book  II.,  VS8.         "  If  any  choose,  Neptune  to  call  the  sea, 
652-57'  To  speak  of  grain  as  Ceres,  or  misuse 

Bacchus,  not  give  the  liquor  its  true  name, 
So  may  we  let  him  call  the  rounded  earth 
Mother  of  gods,  if  he  in  truth  forbear 
With  foul  religion  still  his  mind  to  stain." 

But  not  the  details  alone  are  poetic.  Even  the  Lucre- 
tian  Cosmos  itself,  lonesome,  dreary,  and  lifeless  though  it 
be,  appeals,  perhaps  for  that  very  reason,  with  terrific 
power  to  our  minds.  From  the  haunted  memory  we  can 
never  wholly  banish  again  that  infinite  snow-storm  of  silent 
atoms,  moving  for  countless  ages  through  endless  empti- 
ness. 


"  Such  is  the  nature  of  unbounded  space 
00     ^,  vBs.  That  gleaming  lightnings  cannot  traverse  it, 

Though  gliding  on  through  endless  lapse   of 

time, 
Nor  even  lessen  by  a  jot  the  way 
That  still  remains  to  go." 

A  homelier  figure,  that  grows  no  less  memorable,  is  the 
javelin-thrower,  taking  his  stand  on  any  terminus  we  may 
imagine,  only  to  cast  his  spear  out  into  further  space  again 
and  ever  again. 

In  truth  the  study  of  Lucretius  will  eventually  leave,  in 
the  sensitive  mind,  a  world-picture  fairly  comparable  to 
Dante's  mediaeval  conception,  or  to  the  great  drama  of  the 


130  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

Iliad,  where  the  Olympian  council  watches  the  struggle  be- 
fore Troy,  while  Thetis,  Iris,  and  Hermes  glide  heaven- 
ward or  earthward,  and  Pluto  leaps  in  terror  from  his  throne 
lest  the  earth  be  rent  above  his  head.  Less  bright  than 
Homer's,  less  agonizing  than  Dante's,  the  Lucretian  Cos- 
mos has  its  own  weird,  lonely  charm.  Indeed,  the  beauty  of 
natural  objects  is  set  forth,  in  many  passages,  with  such 
truth,  tenderness,  enthusiasm,  even  reverence,  that  Pro- 
fessor Shorey  calls  the  poet  a  Pantheist  after  all,  akin 
in  some  moods  to  Wordsworth,  rather  than  a  true  mate- 
rialist. 

The  miracle  of  creation  is  reduced  to  a  minimum :  to  the 
unexplained  ''swerve"  or  eddy  that  brings  atoms  into 
mutual  contact  and  so,  through  endless  change  and  chance, 
produces  at  last  this  world,  and  numberless  others  like  it. 
All  that  now  exists  has  been,  and  shall  be  reproduced, 
again  and  again  in  the  ceaseless  lapse  of  time.  That  matter 
is  indestructible  is  well  taught  and  illustrated. 

"Therefore  no  thing  returns  to  nothingness, 
Book  I    VS8.  -g^^  j^jj^  dissolved,  to  atoms  still  revert. 

So  lastly  die  the  rains,  when  father  ether 
Hath  cast  them  on  the  lap  of  mother  earth. 
Yet  goodly  crops  arise,  the  boughs  turn  green 
Upon  the  trees,  that  heavy  grow  with  fruit. 
Hence  too  our  race  is  fed,  or  herds  of  beasts, 
Hence  gladsome  towns  we  see  with  children  teem    .     .     . 

So  naught  that  seems  to  perisli  dies  indeed. 
Nature  from  other  each  replenishes. 
Nor  will  permit  that  aught  shall  come  to  be 
Unless  by  death  provided  otherwhere." 

Many  results  of  modern  science  are  amazingly  fore- 
shadowed. Yet  many  guesses,  again,  are  purely  childish, 
as  when  the  sun  and  moon  are  made  little  more  than  float- 
ing bubbles,  pressed  upward  by  the  earth's  superior  weight, 
and  hardly  larger  than  they  appear  to  our  eyes.     The  law 


LUCRETIUS  131 

of  perspective  is  emphatically  denied,  self-evident  though 
it  seems.  The  most  radical  fault  is  the  failure  to  appre- 
ciate motion  or  force,  as  no  less  indestructible  and  vital 
than  matter.  Hence  sound,  heat,  even  cold,  are  to  Lucre- 
tius but  subtle,  permeating  substances.  Vision  is  produced 
by  thin  actual  films,  thrown  off  by  all  bodies  as  perfect 
images  of  themselves,  and  actually  reaching  our  eyes. 

Thus  far  it  is  attempted  in  some  degree  to  arm  the 
reader  who  would  undertake  the  consecutive  perusal  of 
Lucretius's  pages.  Yet  such  an  attempt  is  hardly  to  be 
safely  made  by  the  beginner,  or  by  a  student  in  any  sense 
immature.  Thus  the  twenty-seven  detailed  arguments 
against  the  soul's  power  to  outlive  the  body,  while  by  no 
means  all  equally  cogent  nor  even  plausible,  may  throw  a 
lasting  gloom  over  the  mind.  One  passage  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  lines  should  be  omitted  altogether,  in  decent  regard 
for  modern  reticence. 

In  general  it  must  be  constantly  remembered,  that,  like 
nearly  all  Komans,  Lucretius  set  his  didactic  philosophic 
aim  high  above  all  poetic  adornment.  As  he  repeatedly 
says,  he  would  but  sweeten  the  edge  of  the  cup,  from  which 
men  are  to  quaff  the  bitter  yet  salutary  wormwood  of  truth. 

Yet  in  this  volume  our  chief  concern  is  with  Lucre- 
tius as  a  poet.  In  creative  force,  in  a  sense  of  vastness 
and  sublimity,  in  noble,  sonorous,  somewhat  monotonous 
rhythm,  he  is  more  akin  perhaps  to  Milton  than  to  any 
other  master.  Like  the  blind  singer  of  "Paradise  Lost," 
also,  he  stands  in  scholarly  and  philosophic  aloofness  from 
an  age  which  he  disdains. 

*"Tis  sweet,  when  tempests  lash  the  tossing 

Init.  Version  main, 

of     Goidwin         Another's  perils  from  the  shore  to  see  ; 
^°"*'''  Not  that  we  draw  delight  from  other's  pain, 

But  in  their  ills  feel  our  security  ; 

'Tis  sweet  to  view  ranged  on  the  battle  plain 


132  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

The  warring  hosts,  ourselves  from  danger  free  : 
But  sweeter  still  to  stand  upon  the  tower 
Reared  in  serener  air  by  wisdom's  power  ; 

Thence  to  look  down  upon  the  wandering  ways 
Of  men  that  blindly  seeii  to  live  aright, 

See  them  waste  sleepless  nights  and  weary  days, 
Sweat  in  ambition's  press,  that  to  the  lieight 

Of  power  and  glory  they  themselves  may  raise." 

Some  such  scholarly  repose  as  is  here  revealed  was  also 
Epicuros's  ideal  of  happiness,  so  grievously  distorted  by 
his  hostile  critics. 

There  is  a  less  famous  but  no  less  restful  passage,  which 
illustrates,  what  is  still  held  as  an  essential  truth,  that 
atoms  or  molecules  lead  their  unceasing  dance,  like  motes 
in  the  sunbeam,  though  the  mass  which  they  compose  seems 
itself  at  rest.  Emerson's  ''Each  and  All"  may  well  have 
gained  some  touches  from  this  picture. 

Book II.,  vss.        "For  often  woolly  flocks  upon  a  hill 
3«7-32.  Seize  on  their  welcome  food  where'er  the  grass 

Gemmed  with  fresh  dew  invites  and  summons  each  ; 
The  lambs,  well-sated,  play  and  butt  in  sport ; 
Yet  all  commingled,  seen  by  us  afar. 
Seem  one  white  spot  upon  a  verdant  slope. 

Or  when  again  the  mighty  legions  fill 
With  movement  all  the  regions  of  the  plain, 
Waging  a  mimicry  of  war,  to  heaven 
The  glitter  rises,  and  the  whole  earth  round 
Gleams  with  the  bronze,  while  tramping  feet  beneath 
Make  uproar,  yea  the  shoutings  of  the  host 
Smiting  the  mountains  echo  to  the  stars  ; 
The  horsemen  wheeling  dash  across  the  fields, 
Shaking  them  with  the  fury  of  the  charge  ; 
— And  yet  upon  the  heights  tiiere  is  a  spot 
Wlienee  all  doth  seem  one  glimmer,  motionless 
That  lies  upon  the  plain." 

Of  course  there  is  much  in  this  unique  volume  that  is 


H 


-5- 


o 


LUCRETIUS  133 

not  poetry.  At  times  indeed,  waging  keen  polemic  against 
some  Greek  heresy  in  physics,  the  philosopher  complains 
over  the  added  difficulty  self-imposed  by  the  metrical  form, 
or  over  the  lack  of  technical  Latin  nomenclature  wherein 
to  state  his  case.  Yet  he  is  a  true  poet,  and  one  who  by 
his  noble  art  is  raised  high  above  the  turmoil  of  daily  life, 
yet  remains  in  loving  sympathy  with  his  kind.  This 
manly  pride  of  the  artist  in  his  own  superhuman  craft,  so 
common  in  every  Greek  land,  is  here  met  on  Latin  soil 
for  the  first  time  since  Ennius.  It  lifts  this  materialist 
and  atheist,  tliis  scientific  foe  of  all  supernatural  faith,  into 
a  region  of  idealism  where  Plato  himself  would  welcome 
him.  Whatever  the  final  verdict  on  his  chief  doctrines, 
there  are  many  gems  of  his  thought  still  to  be  shared  and 
prized  by  all  lofty  thinkers. 

Yet  surely  there  is  something  unnatural  in  his  whole 
attitude.  The  artist,  seeing  and  revealing  the  order,  the 
unity,  of  Cosmos,  striving  to  reconcile  men  to  its  laws, 
seems  the  last  who  should  deny  the  existence  of  the  su- 
preme Artifex,  the  Demiurge  of  the  universe  itself.  The 
loftier  his  thought,  the  more  this  lack  is  felt,  as  if  the  key- 
stone of  the  heaven-scaling  arch  were  wilfully  broken 
away. 

Thus  Lucretius  comes  very  close  to  the  esoteric  belief, 
that  what  men  call  past  and  future  events  are  not  really 
remoter  than  the  present  moment : 

"  Time  is  not,  of  itself,  but  from  events 
Book  1. ,  vss.  rpj-^g  senses  apprehend  what  has  occurred, 

Then  what  approaches,  what  is  next  to  come. 
No  man  is  conscious,  it  must  be  confessed, 
Of  Time  itself,  abstracted  from  the  movement, 
Or  placid  rest,  of  things." 

But  in  Plato,  in  Emerson,  even   in  Tennyson,  the  ex- 
planation follows  at  once,  that  all  events  lie  together  in  the 


134  THE   CICERONIAN"   AGE 

consciousness  of  an  omnipresent,  all-powerfnl  deity.  The 
true  mystic  even  holds  that  all  phenomena  really  exist 
only  in  the  divine  mind  :  Our  world  may  be  but  His  Dream. 
The  only  passages — not  to  mention  the  figurative  uses  of 
divine  names  already  cited — where  Lucretius  concedes  the 
c  »«        existence  of  gods,  read  almost  like  a  mere 

3iipra  p.  129.  o         ' 

prudent  concession  to  popular  feeling.  In  a 
few  lines  plainly  borrowed  from  the  Odyssey,  and  re-echoed 
by  Tennyson,  both  in  his  '*  Lucretius  "and  in  the  "  Passing 
of  Arthur,"  perhaps  yet  again  in  the  "  Lotus-Eaters," 

"Appear   the   powers   divine,    their    peaceful 

Book  III,  V88.  homes 

18-24. 

Unshaken  by  the  winds,  where  clouds  pour 

down 
No  rain,  nor  snow  congealed  by  biting  frost 
Falls  white  and  harmful.     Cloudless  is  the  sky 
Above  them.     In  the  radiant  light  they  laugh. 
Nature  supplies  all  needs  of  theirs,  and  naught 
At  any  time  their  peace  of  mind  impairs." 

But  in  truth  there  is  no  place,  in  the  unresting  atomic 
dance,  for  this  changeless,  eventless,  aimless  race  or  realm. 
„    .  „  Li  a  far  more  consistent  and  earnest  argu- 

Book  v.,  V88.  o 

146-94.  ment  the  philosopher  later  denies  that  the 

cf.  II.,  646-51.      gods  can  have  had  any  share  in  making  the 

world,  or  any  present  control  over  it.    Again,  in  one  of  the 

noblest  passages,  the  origin  of  superstition 

BookV.,vss.        ^^^  traditional  rites  is   sketched  with  fear- 
1101-1241. 

less  hand.  We  should  prefer  to  have,  frankly 
uttered,  what  seems  to  be  the  logical  conclusion  :  Such  be- 
ings could  never  be  known  to  man  even  if  existent,  and  the 
chances  are  infinitely  against  their  existing  at  all.  But 
from  this  position  Lucretius,  like  his  master  Epicuros, 
shrinks  :  whether  from  fear  of  men's  displeasure,  or  in  the 
lingering  dread  of  possible  divine  power  and  wrath  after 
all,  may  be  debated. 


LUCRETIUS  135 

Yet  this  is  not  by  any  means  a  world  without  justice. 
Lucretius  would  lay  the  whole  responsibility,  for  his  use 
of  life,  on  eacl)  num.  Having  temperately  enjoyed  all  the 
pleasures  of  the  banquet,  the  guest  should  cheerfully  de- 
part to  his  long  repose.  But  the  sensual  sinner,  the  cruel 
tyrant,  and  their  kind,  will  have  their  due  punishment  of 
mind  and  body  in  this  life.  This,  again,  is  exactly  the  doc- 
trine of  Plato's  "  Gorgias,"'  while  even  in  Dante's  ' '  Inferno  " 
the  allegorical  application  to  our  present  world  is  often 
clear. 

In  general  we  should  marvel,  not  at  flaws  or  incongrui- 
ties in  Lucretius's  scheme,  but  at  his  mighty  constructive 
genius  ;  not  at  his  scientific  errors,  but  at  his  many  shrewd 
discoveries  and  prophetic  guesses  ;  finally,  not  that  his 
poetic  genius  flags  at  times,  that  the  scientific  demonstra- 
tion wearies  or  the  didactic  tone  grows  strident,  but  that 
so  much  of  charm,  such  lasting  interest,  is  upon  the  whole 
diffused  over  the  entire  mass  of  ungrateful  material.  This 
is  the  most  modern  of  all  classical  essays  in  the  scientific 
field.  It  is  the  most  instructive,  in  many  of  its  parts  the 
noblest,  of  all  Latin  poems.  As  a  whole  the  Georgics, 
doubtless  also  the  ^neid,  must  be  pronounced  more  cheer- 
ful, and  even  more  entirely  poetic.  Yet  there  are  many 
patriotic  national  epics,  only  one  apotheosis  of  materialism. 

The  single  hexameter  of  Lucretius  has  a  noble,  resonant 
harmony.  The  variation  in  pauses  is  not  sufficient,  and 
the  general  effect  is  one  of  breathless  haste.  The  poem  is 
marred  by  some  repetitions,  and  by  far  more  serious  gaps. 
In  general  it  lacks  the  final  finish,  and  has  also  suffered 
severely  in  transmission.  In  the  single  manuscript  from 
which  all  existing  copies  were  derived  some  entire  pages 
were  already  missing. 

The  poet  is  clearly  an  aristocrat,  thoroughly  cultivated 
and  accustomed  to  luxury,  but  quite  aloof  from  political 


136  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

life.  The  story  of  his  madness,  caused  by  a  love-philtre, 
and  of  his  suicide,  has  been  made  familiar  by  Tennyson's 
poem. 

The  work  is  repeatedly  dedicated  to  a  certain  Memmius. 
This  is  supposed  to  be  the  general  of  whom  Catullus  speaks 
Catullus,  lo  and  rather  bitterly  as  rapacious  and  ungenerous 

*8.  to  his  stall.     By  chance  we  have  from  Cicero 

full  proof  that  Memmius  had  no  sentimental  feeling  as  to 
Epist.  ad  Fam.,     Epicuros,  Lucretius's  revered  master.     Mem- 

*'"•■  '•  mius  had  bought  in  Athens  a  plot  of  land 

on  which  stood,  in  ruinous  condition,  Epicuros's  house. 
Though  he  had  abandoned  the  idea  of  building  on  the  site, 
he  had  refused  to  make  over  the  precious  relic,  on  any 
terms,  to  the  Greek  Patro,  head  of  the  still  existing  Epi- 
curean sect.  Furthermore,  Cicero  appears  to  know  that 
Memmius  shares  his  own  utter  abhorrence  for  the  doctrines 
of  the  school.  This  adds  a  final  touch  of  tragic  loneliness 
to  Lucretius's  personal  fortunes. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  lifework  of  Professor  H.  A.  J.  Munro,  building  on  the  learned 
foundations  laid  by  Lachmann,  has  accomplished  nearly  all  that  can 
ever  be  done  for  the  direct  elucidation  of  Lucretius.  Munro's  three 
volumes,  critical  text,  comment,  and  prose  translation,  are  alike 
masterpieces.  The  American  edition  by  Professor  Kelsey  adds  helpful 
references  to  modern  scientific  works,  but  unfortunately  contains  a 
comment  only  on  Books  I.,  III.,  and  V. 

The  Lucretius  in  the  Ancient  Classics  series  is  by  W.  11.  Mallock. 
His  copious  citations,  and  also  the  renderings  by  Goldwin  Smith  in  his 
"  Bay  Leaves,"  are  in  the  eight-line  stanzas  of  Don  Juan.  In  another 
volume  Mallock  has  served  up  bits  of  Lucretian  thought  in  the  form 
of  quatrains  made  familiar  by  Fitzgerald's  Onuir.  The  blank-verse  at- 
tempts in  the  present  chapter  lean  heavily  on  Munro's  prose. 

The  excellent  essay  by  Professor  Shorey  in  the  Warner  "Library" 
furnishes  an  analysis  of  each  of  Lucretius's  six  books,  and  further 
references  to  English  and  foreign  works.  The  exact  relation  of  Lu- 
cretius's guesses  to  modern  scientific  theory  is  at  least  broached,  but 
hardly  exhausted,  by  Masson  in  his  "Atomic  Theory  of  Lucretius." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  DECAY  OF  DRAMA 

The  brief  and  exotic  life  of  tragedy  and  comedy,  as 
serious  art-forms,  in  Rome,  lias  been  repeatedly  indicated 
The  popular  forms  of  amusement  in  this  age  were,  rather, 
elaborate  processions,  contests  of  strange  animals  with  men 
or  with  each  other,  and,  above  all,  the  gladiatorial  games. 
Under  such  competition  even  the  coarse  Atellan  burlesque 
could  no  longer  hold  its  own,  and  gave  way  to  the  yet  more 
debased  and  debasing  Mhmis. 

The  combination  of  song,  dancing,  and  conversation  in 
this  latter  performance  suggests  a  comparison  to  a  modern 
extravaganza  with  ballet.  That  female  parts  were  actually 
taken  by  women  only  assures  us  of  the  utter  degradation 
to  which  the  theatre  had  fallen.  Costumes  were  at  times 
scanty  indeed,  or  even  dispensed  with  altogether.  Of  reti- 
cence or  propriety  in  subject  or  treatment  there  was  not 
even  a  pretence.  From  such  debasement  some  attempts 
were  undoubtedly  made  to  elevate  even  this  brutally  coarse 
form  of  popular  amusement :  but  the  taste  of  the  mob 
itself  could  not  be  purified.  The  best-known  theatrical 
incident  of  Caesar's  dictatorship  brings  together  the  two 
most  eminent  authors  of  mimes ;  a  Syrian  freedman  and  a 
respected  Roman  knight  ;  and  the  victory  in  such  an  arena 
fell,  naturally  enough,  to  the  alien  and  ex-slave. 

As  to  the  mimes  of  Publilius  Syrus,or  the  Syrian,  we  know 
curiously  little.  Though  still  performed  in  Seneca's  day, 
even  the  titles  have  perished,  except  two.  The  only  con- 
siderable fragment,    on    Luxury,    quoted    by    Petronius, 

137 


138  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

oifers  little  save  a  list  of  imported  fowls  such  as  the 
peacock,  capon,  stork,  and  a  similar  string  of  costly  gems. 
There  remain,  however,  between  six  and  seven  hundred 
single  lines,  accredited  to  Publilius,  of  a  gnomic  and  aphor- 
istic character.  Of  course  such  commonplaces  are  current 
coin  all  the  world  over,  and  no  man  can  claim  property  in 
them.  Yet  considering  its  ignoble  origin,  this  collection 
is  by  no  means  to  be  despised.  A  few  lines  will  fairly  il- 
lustrate the  quality  of  all. 

"  Expect  from  others  what  you  do  to  them. " 

"  Hatred,  and  Love,  no  third,  a  woman  knows." 

"  Others  admire  our  treasures, — and  we  theirs." 

"  He  claims  the  more,  to  whom  too  much  is  granted." 

"  Hardly  a  god  against  good  luck  can  fight." 

"  They  hate  us  also  who  have  done  us  wrong." 

♦'  Endure,  not  rail  at  what  cannot  be  changed." 

"  Tears  of  an  heir  are  smiles  behind  a  mask." 

"Greed  nor  to  others  nor  itself  is  kind. " 

"  Foolish  he  who  for  a  second  shipwreck  blameth  Neptune 

Btill." 

' '  Treat  your  friend  as  if  aware  how  easily  he  turns  a  foe. " 

"  Least  is  that  mortal's  need  who  least  desires." 

"  No  peril  without  peril  is  o'ercome. " 

"  O  Life,  in  woe  too  long,  for  joy  how  brief  1 " 

"  Who  bears  the  older  wrong,  invites  the  new." 

Such  are  the  sifted  grains,  some  even  of  them  blasted  and 
bitter  enough  to  the  taste.  The  chaff  is  vanished  forever. 
In  many  cases  the  dialogue  seems  to  have  been  improvised, 
at  least  in  large  part. 

A  much  more  definite  glimpse  is  accorded  of  the  Roman 
knight,  Decimus  Laberius.  Some  forty  titles  of  liis  mimes  re- 
main. "  The  Hot  Springs  "  is  a  good  setting 
105-43  B.C.  ^Qj.  ^  social  satire.  ''Lake  Avernus"  and 
"  Necromancy"  might  be  travesties  of  more  sacred  themes. 
''Fisherman,"  "  Poverty,"  "Saturnalia"  have  a  homelier 
sound.     But  from  a  verse  or  two  no  play  can  be  restored. 


THE    DECAY   OF   DRAMA  139 

Though  bold  and    happy    in   expression,    most   of   these 
scant  surviving  lines  are  vulgar  or  commonplace.     Some 
sparks  of    Naevius's  daring  temper,   however,   the   dicta- 
tor Julius  may  well  have  noted,  when  with 
unusual  refinement  of  cruelty  he  made  the 
request,  which  from  him  was  a  command,  that  the  wealthy 
riacrobius,  ii„      ^nd  proud-spirited  graybeard  should  play  a 
7-  part  in  his  own   mime.     With  the  story  is 

preserved  the  Prologue  in  which  the  dramatist  bade  fare- 
well to  his  social  rank  : 

"Necessity,  'gainst  whose  opposing  force 
Many  liave  wished,  few  had  tlie  power,  to  strive, 
Hath  dragged  me — wbitlier,  with  my  failing  force? 
I  whom  no  bribery  of  gold  or  place, 
No  fear,  no  violence,  no  authority 
Could  move  from  my  decision  in  my  youth, 
Lo  !  in  old  age  am  easily  dislodged, 
At  the  mere  gracious  wish  of  a  great  man. 
Uttered  in  soft  gently  persuasive  words. 
Nothing  to  him  could  gods  themselves  deny  : 
Who,  then,  would  suffer  that  I  should  refuse  ? 
I,  whose  twice  thirty  years  were  without  stain. 
Came  forth  a  Roman  knight  from  my  abode, 
Homeward  return  a  mime  !     Ah  me  !     My  life 
Is  one  day  longer  than  I  should  have  lived. " 

The  tale  of  Laberius's  own  fortunes  need  not  be  read  as 
darkest  tragedy.  He  retained  at  least  his  sense  of  humor, 
the  power  of  caustic  speech.  In  this  very  play  the  people 
watched  Caesar  chafe  helplessly  at  such  lines,  put  into  the 
mouth  of  a  whipped  slave,  as 

"  Up  !  Romans,  ere  we  lose  our  liberties," 
and  again, 

"Many  he  fears  perforce  whom  many  fear." 
Caesar  gave   his  own  vote  for  Laberius,  and  when,  over- 
come by  the  popular  cry,  he  had  assigned  the  dramatist's 


140  THE   CICERONIAN   AGE 

prize  to  Publilius,  he  hauded  to  the  degraded  knight  a 
generous  purse  :  uud  also  the  gold  ring  which  restored  his 
social  rank.  It  is  said  that  when  Laberius  attempted  to 
resume  his  seat  among  his  former  class,  in  the  orchestra, 
Cicero,  in  particular,  met  him  with  a  scornful  "  I  would 
make  room  for  you  if  I  were  not  so  crowded."  The  latter 
phrase  cut  also  the  many  new  senators,  of  ignoble  origin, 
admitted  by  the  dictator.  But  the  retort  came  promptly 
back  :  "  Curious,  liyoit  are  crowded,  always  accustomed  to 
sit  on  two  stools !  " 

But  it  is  really  pathetic,  to  think  that  all  the  refinement 
of  Caesar's  court,  all  the  wealth  and  luxury  of  the  world's 
capital,  had  no  drama  save  this.  The  disdain  even  of  a 
Cicero  for  the  professional  artist  is  a  thoroughly  national 
and  Roman  scorn.  Some  such  patrician  contempt  for  pro- 
fessional mastery  can  be  seen  at  times  even  in  Athens. 
Phidias  himself  may  have  been  stigmatized,  it  is  said,  as 
a  mechanic  ;  but  one  can  hardly  believe  that  Pericles  had 
any  such  Philistine  narrowness.  While  Aristophanes 
donned  the  mask  that  no  other  Athenian  dared  assume, 
and  played  the  part  of  Cleon  to  the  demagogue's  face,  the 
foremost  gentlemen  of  Athens  appeared  in  their  own  char- 
acters as  the  choristers  of  the  "  Knights."  So  Pericles  cer- 
tainly jested  as  a  social  equal  with  his  fellow-general 
Sophocles,  who  had  played  his  own  Nausicaa  in  his  youth, 
and  excused  his  retirement  from  the  stage  by  his  weak 
voice.  Jonson  if  not  Shakspeare,  Racine  if  not  Moliere,  were 
the  companions  of  the  forgotten  great  men  of  their  day. 
When  little  Weimar  was  glorified  by  the  great  pair  of  poet- 
friends,  the  young  duke  himself  was  an  amateur  member  of 
the  actors'  guild.  Sir  Henry  Irving  is  an  honored  name 
in  any  drawing-room.  Doubtless  the  Romans  of  the  dying 
republic  had  such  a  theatre  as  they  deserved,  such  art  as 
they  could  appreciate  :  and  patronize. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

KETROSPECT  AND  PROSPECT 

Whatevek  be  the  true  date  for  the  creation  of  the 
empire,  the  republic  did  uot  outlive  Cicero.  In  44-43  is 
heard  for  the  last  time  real  discussion  in  the  senate,  or  any 
serious  pretence  of  elections  by  the  people.  Thereafter 
both  assemblies  merely  register  the  decisions  of  their 
master.  At  most,  it  was  a  question,  for  a  few  years, 
whether  Lepidus  or  Antony  should  share  in  any  degree 
Octavian's  control  over  Italy.  His  grip  on  all  the  effective 
forces  was  never  shaken.  His  reign  of  almost  sixty  years 
outlasted  even  the  memory  of  the  old  regime. 

That  regime  had  never  been  a  real  democracy  like  Peri- 
clean  Athens.  The  provincial  world  was  fortunate,  to 
escape  a  rapacious  oligarchy  and  receive  instead  a  single 
master.  Even  Italy  could  but  welcome  rest,  after  a  hun- 
dred years  of  internecine  strife  and  chaos. 

But  literature,  as  the  free  utterance  of  a  free  people, 
now  became  as  impossible  in  Rome  as  it  had  been  already 
for  centuries  in  Greece.  No  Catullus  could  again  arise  to 
defy  Caesar,  or  Coesar's  favorites.  No  Cicero  could  hurl 
Philippics  at  the  oppressors  of  the  nation,  or  ridicule  the 
worship  of  a  mortal  man.  On  the  contrary,  the  first 
authentic  utterance  of  the  loftiest  Augustan  poet  takes  up 
at  once  the  burden  of  most  abased  adulation. 

Virgil's    Bu-        "O  Meliboeus,  a  god  unto  us  this  leisure  ac- 

colics.  I.  corded. 

Yea,  for  to  me  a  god  will  he  be  forever.     His  altar 
Often  a  tender  lamb  of  our  fold  shall  stain  with  his  life-blood." 

X41 


142  THE   CICERONIAN    AGE 

For  a  half-century  the  eyes  of  mortal  Augustus  beheld 
these  altars  of  his  own  worshippers.  Such  ignoble  fetters 
the  arts  of  imperial  Rome  wore  to  the  end.  That  pathetic 
final  scene  in  the  great  orator's  career  in  December  of  43, 
then,  does  not  merely  leave  an  indelible  crimson  stain  on 
young  Octavian's  ascending  chariot-wheels,  but  marks  un- 
mistakably the  close  of  an  epoch. 

With  the  sole  exception  of  Lucretius's  poem,  repub- 
lican Eome  offers  no  great  creative  and  imaginative 
masterpiece.  Catullus's  piercing  cry  has  no  national  char- 
acter. Like  Archilochos,  Villon,  Heine,  or  de  Musset,  he 
simply  finds  in  verse  a  needful  relief  for  his  own  tortured 
heart.  Some  strains  appeal  mightily,  indeed,  to  wider 
human  feelings,  but  he  would  have  cared  little  or  nothing 
for  that.  The  epics  of  Na3vius  and  Ennius  cannot  fairly 
be  judged,  but  either  would  probably  now  seem  a  naive 
record  of  early  Eoman  legend  and  patriotic  pride,  rather 
than  a  treasure  of  art.  Of  the  Romans'  drama,  again, 
no  one  has  now  a  right  to  speak  positively,  but  at  best  they 
themselves  permitted  it  to  languish,  long  before  freedom 
was  utterly  lost. 

So  we  are  largely  dependent  for  material  on  history  and 
oratory,  two  fields  which  are  but  upon  the  border  of  artis- 
tic literature.  Caesar's  Commentaries,  for  instance,  have 
a  certain  beauty  and  charm  in  their  unadorned  simplicity, 
yet  they  were  written,  and  are  preserved,  for  instruction 
rather  than  for  enjoyment.  Xenophon's  narrative  of  the 
retreat  of  the  ten  thousand  has  far  more  grace,  though 
less  historical  importance. 

In  truth  the  largest  literary  gift  of  republican  Rome  to 
later  men,  unless  it  be  Lucretius's  bold  voice  of  negation, 
was  the  lucid,  copious,  rather  ornate  style  of  the  orator 
Cicero.  As  has  already  been  emphasized,  the  peculiar 
virtues,  the  chief  legacy,  of  this  sturdy  people  must  be 
sought  ill  other  fields  :  as,  architecture,  law,  political 
organization. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES  143 


3 


V 
It 
o 

3 

a,         J 
«  o 


^ 


pq 


•I 


02 

a 

64-) 

^H 

o 

o 

M 

J 

■ts 

.42 

M 

.a 

n 

n 

eo 

■^ 

00 

00 

c 

o 

^ 

P4 

o 

0 

« 

'^l 


pi 


m 


5  I  IS  ^ 

<25  -*  s  g  £;^5o 

o 


^  (S  ^    ^    ^    B    5"^    ^    ^ 


^-^     Sp?-§^_5fl 


£      "g      '^  ^  Mt-  b  e  a  2  5  " 


a^-^g 


00 
•Or-.  00 

B  i-t       0>  05 


«  2 


o 

s 

< 

CQ 

d 

, 

•1-1 

ID      . 

Oi 

^  a 

Cfi 

.^  «f4 

o 

O     03 

P3 

O 

m 

eS'C 

3 

&.a 

•*^ 

.^3 

tW  * 

^ 

t< 

5J 

a 

O    (U     . 

s 

sed 
reec 
ntia 

o 

3 

go  2 

5» 

1  v 

S  -  « 

a 

TS 

af  CO   CO 

_o 

O 

3~.2 

'■+3 

2 

o 

.a  fe  fcj 

o 

3 

'-'O 

o»t>. 

00  00 

e-t- 

do 

•^    M 

.£>    Al 

CO 

^^     •* 

O   >> 

-ti-J3 

le 

T3_6p 

ai   O  j: 

.fh        aj 

A 

■^■c 

^<4-l    CS 

;§*^ 

X 

3    fl«4-l 

•H 

CO  o  o 

O 

«M-5    Cl 

g 

©2.2 

.2 

-   o  *= 

-e 

C  Jo    £L 

cS 

etur 
Res 
scri 

o 

if 

P5 

< 

eo 

Oi 

CD 

t- 

144 


THE    CICERONIAN    AGE 


1 


I 


% 


o 


-  m 

•  «  § 

2  S3 

Ko  PI 


QD 


O    3  -t3  ; 


coo 


I 
I 


•2 


•I 

a 

2 

o 


ID 

2 

p 


I 


s  "  a 

»   no   S 
V,  oQg 

o  o"^ 

"O    »,    t< 

£•2  S 

<U    .^    » 

00  .td 

«       .    01 

2^  a 

ea    et    ^ 


^ 


^ 


.3  **> 


o 

.a* 

Els  CO* 

Ph  o 

!"-« 

ed   (D   4) 

^    H    OQ 

g  c«  ca 


*> 

CO 

a 

bo 
(S 

a 

a 
a 

o 


s 


3  ■-    H  I-  ^- 


O  C  g  o  O  =! 
S.2§ 

;00 


Q        uc 


o  o.= 

OJ     H     M 

t>.5   2 


o 


ia 

ea   K 

.2     ^113 

m   <U   M 

d    4>  -S    *J    CO 

3  rS:^  to  M 
j3  h  ^  o  n 


(3>tO 


« 


n 

01 

es 

.a 

p. 

m     • 

>>3 

O  c3 
^  a 

la 


e3 


J3 

.d  CO 

*a  4) 

-S  * 

1)  (U 

a  a 

o  o 


a 
13 

'•3 
o 

OD 

O    oc    0) 

o-S  tf 

(-(  ^  □ 

S  j;  § 
o  S?  S 


s 


o-     2 
.2     a 


O 

ca 


a 
o 


10  ^ 

•5  t«-S 

u  a  a 
-sJ'S  a 
uC?S3 

O  tr 

««    O    o 

2 -go 


o  to 


4>  ^S 

Ch  ca 

ixi  a 

.  a 
ca '  >- 

to  C-l 

8^ 

'w'     CD 


a  1"^-^ 


li* 


g 
o 

u 

<o 
u 


00 

o 


.s  a 
§^ 

E  ea 

8  <" 

'-'    CO 


=  ■6. 


■  •  m  V  f 

m  0^02 

3  o  ca  „ 

■^  .  r        ■*: 

=«  b  iJ  !« 


H   5P"^   toTT   00:13-^   to   cotH 
OS-^  S;^  SO--'  8  £8  » 


.12 

n  t- 


•4*         »H 


s     s; 


CO 


— lO       Osop 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLES  145 


3 

'g 

a 

<H 

J 

O 

-ts 

^ 

■t5 

p 

C4 

a>- 

Q 

"• — ' 

•^ 

CO 

in 

JO 

o 

1 
-a 

3 

a: 

eu 

a 

TS 

's 

g 

a 

a> 

•i-t 

j3 

•  P-* 

■4^ 

;-i 

QQ 

<v 

s 

-i; 

o 

iJ; 

O 

lO 

•* 

1 

o 


9 


s     =^ 

X  £  M 

111!  =111  |i^.V4llil:  iill      I 

§QP§     |pog      8  2|«fSoQ<!PaHPPQO^  8 


S 


^       ^  -.a'sS'3    iai^ 


D  +a 


o 


1  u>>^Sa      S      §.S^2      gSS|S,>.J^1^'gl|ft 


>  S?^S-Sfi      S      S=«5£a      "^  &S  S  S  B  ci3T,o 


ri 


}-•  ^H 


cS 


o 


[ft  ^     ^^         ■*     -* 


BOOK   III 
THE   AUGUSTAN  AGE 

(43  B.C.-14  A.D.) 


CHAPTER  XX 

REPUBLIC  AND  EMPIRE 

It  is  a  belief  rooted  deep  in  our  racial  consciousness, 
that  all  the  noble  crafts  prosper  best  in  the  air  of  freedom. 
It  seems  no  mere  coincidence,  that  Athens,  the  most  demo- 
cratic of  ancient  states,  where  not  even  the  ballot  but  the 
lot  filled  almost  all  offices,  where  comedy  dared  assail  any 
and  every  citizen  with  merciless  gibe  and  slanderous  accu- 
sation— was  also  the  greatest  art-centre  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Florence,  Nuremberg,  Shakespeare's  England,  may 
perhaps  also  make  claim  to  have  been  at  once  centres  of  art 
and  bulwarks  of  human  liberty.  Certainly  some  forms  of 
expression,  like  oratory,  can  hardly  flourish  at  all  under 
tyranny. 

Yet  there  is  another  side  to  the  tale.  Many  a  race  has 
passed  through  freedom  into  license,  and  anarchy  at  last, 
but  left  no  songs  or  statues  behind  them.  Again,  the 
free  Swiss,  dwelling  secure  so  long  in  the  very  garden  of 
the  high  gods,  have  in  all  their  centuries  given  the  world 
no  poet.  It  was  a  courtier  of  a  German  princeling  who 
immortalized  their  chief  legend  in  "  Wilhelm  Tell."  A 
loyal  Dane  carved  the  Lion  of  Lucerne. 

Not  all  men,  not  all  races,  deserve  to  retain  their  free- 
dom. Few  indeed  have  been  strong  enough  to  maintain 
themselves,  and  yet  so  wise  as  to  resist  the  temptation  to 
seek  foreign  conquests.  Such  acquisitions  can  be  held  only 
by  force,  and  martial  law  becomes  almost  inevitably  cen- 
tralized in  absolute  power.  As  Rome's  sway  widened,  her 
aristocracy  dwindled  to  an  oligarchy.     Masterful  chiefs  at 

149 


150  THE   AUGUSTAN"   AGE 

first,  like  tlie  Scipios,  refused  continuous  power.  Even 
Sulla  abdicated,  the  blood-thirsty  Marius  and  the  clement 
Julius  were  early  cut  off  :  yet  every  experience  was  making 
clearer  the  need  of  an  emperor. 

Octavian,  a  mere  youth,  quite  without  official  position, 
raised  legions  chiefly  by  the  magic  of  his  dead  uncle's 
name.  That  Cicero's  party  meant,  or  lioped,  to  push 
"  the  boy"  aside  as  soon  as  Antony  should  be  crushed,  is 
more  than  probable.  But  steering  his  course  masterfully, 
profiting  even  by  the  bloody  proscriptions  which  he  may 
have  deprecated,  he  quickly  made  himself  the  real  lord  of 
Kome.  The  term  ''Augustan  age"  may  fairly  be  ex- 
43  B.C.-  tended  over  nearly  sixty  years,  and  forms  a 

14  A.D.  singularly  well-defined  epoch  in  literary  art. 

While  every  author,  indeed  every  Roman,  is  henceforth 
an  obsequious  subject,  and  even  a  conformist,  at  least,  to 
the  popular  worship  of  the  living  emperor,  yet  we  shall  be 
reminded  often  that  the  generation  of  Horace  and  Livy 
had  known,  and  long  remembered,  the  freer  if  more  tur- 
bulent days  of  old.  Augustus  himself  encouraged  much 
frankness  and  independence  of  speech ;  nay,  he  even 
shared  the  lingering  national  pride  in  a  past  so  radically 
different  from  his  ])resent. 

The  world  as  a  whole  was  now  to  enjoy  such  tranquillity 
as  it  had  never  before  known.  Wealth  and  trade  increased, 
despite  the  exactions  of  tyrants  and  their  tools.  The 
Latin  and  Greek  languages  were  growing  all  but  universal. 
Both  must  have  been  heard,  for  instance,  not  merely  in 
Jerusalem,  but  in  the  village  street  of  Bethlehem.  Men 
of  genius  from  every  race  and  land  could  hope  for  a  career 
in  the  metropolis.  Dionysios,  the  greatest  of  ancient  lit- 
erary critics,  Diodoros  the  historian,  Strabo  the  geographer, 
lived  and  wrote  their  Greek  works  in  the  Rome  of  the 
early  empire.  Tlie  saintliest  of  Roman  emperors  is  en- 
rolled  as  a  Greek,  not  as  a   Latin  author.     Plutarch   re- 


REPUBLIC    AND    EMPIRE  151 

turned  of  free  choice  to  his  Boeotian  hamlet,  but  was  offered 
court  favor,  and  doubtless  wealth  also,  by  the  emperor. 
Josephus  the  Jew,  who  wrote  in  Eome  the  story  of  his  own 
campaigns  against  Titus,  was  but  the  greatest  of  many 
such  captives.  Indeed,  the  wealthy  Romans  generally 
owned,  more  or  less  absolutely,  the  philosophers  who  educa- 
ted their  children.  Of  culture,  therefore,  as  of  all  coarser 
luxuries,  Rome  was  indeed  the  centre. 

It  is  not  strange,  surely,  if  gifted  authors,  from  wide- 
sundered  birthplaces,  crowd  the  first  century  of  imperial 
Latin  letters.  They  are  Rome's,  if  at  all,  chiefly  by  right 
of  conquest.  Poetry  especially,  as  an  elaborate  self- 
conscious  art,  flourishes.  But  it  is  hard  indeed  to  find  an 
artist  without  a  patron.  Confessing  the  general  truth,  it 
will  be  needless  to  point  constantly  to  the  collar.  Nor  will 
it  be  denied,  that  true  heroes  and  philosophers  have  ex- 
isted in  every  station  of  life,  from  a  Marcus  Aurelius  on 
the  imperial  throne  to  that  kindred  spirit,  Epictetos  the 
slave.  Indeed,  of  these  two  it  might  be  questioned  which 
was  more  truly  free. 

In  some  respects  the  conditions  were  most  favorable  to 
letters.  The  custom  of  authors'  readings,  in  a  more  or 
less  select  circle,  must  often  have  been  salutary,  though  it 
might  easily  become  an  insufferable  fad,  as  the  satirists 
assure  us  it  did.  Both  this  usage,  and  the  creation  of  a 
public  library,  are  accredited  to  the  cultivated  and  critical 
Asinius  Pollio,  of  whom  there  will  be  more  to  say. 

Augustus  undoubtedly  held  the  firm  conviction  that  his 
long,  unwearied  career  was  beneficent  to  the  Romans  and  to 
the  world.  This  is  expressed,  with  truly  imperial  confi- 
dence, in  the  only  large  utterance  of  his  that  has  survived. 
It  is  a  record,  in  thirty-five  chapters,  of  the  offices  and 
dignities  held  by  him,  of  the  gifts  in  money,  entertainiftents 
and  edifices  lavished  upon  the  people,  and  finally  of  his  ex- 
ploits in  war  and  peace.     This  simple,  dignified  statement, 


152  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

not  nil  imwortliy  of  Julius  himself,  was  intended  to  be  set 
up  before  Augustus's  mausoleum.  There  remains,  how- 
ever, only  a  copy,  upon  the  walls  of  a  temple  at  Ancyra, 
itself  dedicated  to  "  Augustus  and  the  goddess  Eome/'  Dis- 
tinctly regrettable  is  the  loss  of  Augustus's  historical  me- 
moirs, in  thirteen  books. 

So  wise  an  observer  as  Mommsen  is  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  world  has  been  happier  nnder  the  best  of  the 
early  emperors  than  at  any  other  epoch.  Yet  to  most  men 
the  selfishness,  the  wasteful  luxury,  the  brutal  vices  of 
imperial  Rome,  above  all  the  terrible  sufferings  of  the  early 
Christians  there,  make  her  glory  hateful.  Again,  the  rav- 
ages of  later  barbarism  have  stripped  away  the  gleaming 
facades,  the  splendor  of  bronze  and  gold,  and  left  at  best 
the  rough,  rude  core  of  many  a  lofty  structure  :  so  that 
Augustus's  boast  recoils  in  mockery  upon  his  memory. 

As  Clough  exclaims, 

"  '  Brickwork  I  found  thee,  and  marble  I  left  thee  ! '  their 
emperor  vaunted  ; 
'  Marble  I  thought  thee,  and  brickwork  I  find  thee  ! '  the 
tourist  may  answer." 

A  more  enduring  gratitude,  even  a  more  lasting  memo- 
rial for  himself,  Augustus  secured  by  gathering  about 
him  the  ablest  poets  of  his  day,  relieving  them  from  want, 
and  encouraging  their  highest  activity.  Most  clearly  does 
this  appear  true  of  Virgil,  the  first  and  best-beloved  of  them 
all,  the  only  Roman  rival  of  Lucretius.  Passing  mention 
may  be  made  of  Augustus's  own  hexameters  on  "  Sicilia," 
— probably  an  account  of  his  campaigii  against  Sextus 
Pompey, — or  the  tragedy  on  Ajax,  the  fate  of  which  has 
been  already  mentioned.  A  single  coarse  specimen  of  his 
Epigrams  is  cited  by  Martial.  But  not  even  an  imperial 
author  can  force  posterity  to  preserve  his  commonplace 
work. 


!^«      :  !  >  1/^  S  ^  1        .  _  ^ 


•h-. 


"-A 

H 


BEPUBLIC    AND    EMPIRE  153 


M^CENAS 


We  must  also  mention  the  man  whose  name,  yet  more 
than  Augustus's,  had  become  typical  of  the  generous,  tact- 
ful patron.  Though  doubtless  a  trusted  adviser  at  all 
crises,  Maecenas  was  hardly  a  great  statesman  or  minister 
in  the  modern  sense.  For  that,  indeed,  Augustus's  own 
activity  left  scanty  scope.  Msecenas  was  especially  success- 
ful as  a  diplomatic  and  conciliatory  envoy.  The  famous 
Journey  to  Brundisium,  shared  and  chronicled  by  Horace, 
postponed  for  some  years  the  inevitable  break  between  Oc- 
tavian  and  Antony. 

In  less  strenuous  times  Maecenas  lapsed  into  luxurious 
dissipation,  perhaps  largely  to  avoid  that  jealousy  on  his 
master's  part  which  appears  to  have  overtaken  him  after 
all.  We  know  just  enough  of  Maecenas's  literary  ventures 
to  be  assured  that  his  style  was  inflated,  labored,  and  pain- 
ful, while  his  matter  was  anything  but  noble.  At  least, 
his  best-known  sentiment  is  a  peculiarly  un-Roman  one,  a 
prayer  for  the  continuance  of  life  on  any  terms,  though 
racked  with  every  possible  torture. 

POLLIO 

A  much  larger  figure  in  literature,  and  perhaps  the  last 
representative  of  republican  frankness  and  fearlessness, 
was  Gains  Asinius  Pollio.  He  was  indeed  a  survivor  of 
that  audacious  youthful  group  about  Catullus,  who  calls 
him  a 

"Boy  well-skilled  in  witty  device  and  jesting." 

His  refusal  to  join  the  campaign  against  Antony  was  tem- 
pered by  his  audacious  offer  to  be  himself  the  victor's 
prize  :  a  scornful  acceptance  of  the  inevitable.  Yet  his 
tongue  at  least  was  never  enslaved.     Some  of  his  severe 


154  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

criticisms  have  puzzled  all  later  students.  Few  indeed  can 
find  in  Livy's  style  that  provincial  Patavinitij  of  which 
Pollio  complained.  His  dislike  for  Salliistmay  more  easily 
be  shared.  Cicero's  florid  graces  were  also  satirized.  Nor 
did  Pollio  echo  Cicero's  warm  praise  of  the  great  Julius's 
Commentaries,  which  he  thought  full  of  credulity,  lapses 
of  memory,  and  graver  sins  against  truth.  He  even  be- 
lieved that  Caesar,  if  he  had  survived  to  old  age,  would 
have  recast  the  work  altogether. 

Pollio's  history  of  his  own  times  in  seventeen  books, 
beginning  with  the  ''first  triumvirate,"  is  a  document 
whose  loss  is  still  to  be  deplored.  The  Gr£eco-Roman 
tragedies  of  such  a  man  can  be  spared,  even  though  Virgil 
himself,  with  friendship's  partiality,  tells  of  the 

''Poems  of  yours  that  alone  are  worthy  of  Sophocles'  buskin." 

But  again  we  are  recalled  to  the  best-beloved  of  poets. 

Messalla,  more  nearly  than  Pollio  a  rival  of  Maecenas  as  a 

patron   of   letters,   will  be  mentioned   on  a 

Infra,  p.  220.  \ 

later  page. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

This  chapter  is  chiefly  a  digression  into  historical  fields.  Pollio's 
bold  remarks  on  Ctesar's  books  are  cited  by  Suetonius,  Caesar,  §  56. 
His  opinion  of  Cicero  is  preserved,  and  is  the  chief  fragment  of  his 
history.  See  Peter,  Historicorum  Romanorum  Fragmenta,  pp.  264- 
65.  Mommsen's  special  monograph  on  the  Monumentum  Ancyranum 
is  a  masterpiece. 


fefl  l>^1 


CHAPTER  XXI 

VIRGIL 

There  is  probably  no  literary  qnestion  that  has  been  so 
exhaustively  discussed  as  the  poetic  merits  and  rank  of 
Virgil.  No  serious  student  will  accept  here  the  mere  dic- 
tum of  another.  The  problem  is  one  on  which  men  may 
well  change  their  views  decisively,  with  lapse  of  years  and 
fuller  study  of  art  and  life.  Comparetti,  the  great  Italian 
scholar,  calls  the  ^neid  "a  poem  which  never,  before  or 
since,  has  been  equalled."  This  is  essentially  the  faith  of 
the  Romance  peoples  generally,  to  whom  Virgil  is  stiil 
"the  poet."  On  the  other  hand,  an  even  more  famous 
German  scholar,  Niebuhr,  says  :  "  The  whole  iEneid,  from 
beginning  to  end,  is  a  misdirected  thought." 

Virgil  was  by  nature  a  lyric  poet.  Even  in  the  Georgics, 
the  episodes,  the  details,  are  more  precious  than  the  pleas- 
ing general  effect.  The  attempt  to  give  unified  epic  treat- 
ment to  all  Roman  story,  from  ^Eneas  to  Augustus,  was  in 
itself  impossible,  and  a  task  under  which  this  gentle  yet 
reluctant  singer  sank  utterly  overburdened.  But  they  who 
deny  most  confidently  that  the  -^neid  is  the  successful 
masterpiece  of  national  epic,  have  abundant  admiration  for 
these  marvellously  sweet,  ever-varied,  hexameter  verses,  in 
which  is  heard,  for  the  first  time,  the  full  vibration  of 
pathetic  human  sympathy.  Yet  this  very  charm  of  Virgil, 
the  tears  and  thrill  of  sadness  in  every  utterance,  would 
alone  debar  him  from  the  largest  seat.  Pathos  is,  after  all, 
not  the  chief  chord  in  the  harp  of  Life. 

Man  is  the  highest  object  of  human  interest.     Virgil 

155 


156  THE   AUGUSTAN    AGE 

has  created  no  character  who  is  fully  alive  and  familiar  to 
all  men.  His  ^^neas  is  unreal  and  uninteresting  to  the 
end.  The  poet  lacks  that  complete  vision  of  life  which 
makes  the  Iliad,  or  the  Commedia,  quite  as  dramatic  as 
the  Antigone  or  Alkestis.  One  person,  nevertheless,  Vir- 
gil has  taught  us  to  know,  and  to  love  with  intimate  and 
passionate  tenderness  ;  the  melancholy  weary  singer  Pub- 
lius  Vergilius  Maro  himself.  But  we  know  only  the  artist, 
the  dreamer,  the  spirit,  not  a  man  in  the  world. 

Earely  indeed  is  found  in  Virgil's  work  such  a  satiric 
thrust  of  mother-wit  as  Lucilius  or  Horace  loves  to  deliver. 
Perhaps  only  one  such  verse  is  famous  : 

"  Verily  ever  a  fickle,  a  changeable  creature  is  woman." 

And  that  loses  half  its  force  because  it  is  put,  most  incon- 
gruously, into  a  god's  mouth,  just  when  the  cold-hearted 
hero  is  ordered  to  desert  his  devoted  and  generous  wife. 
A  far  better  typical  line,  conned  by  each  generation  in 
eager  youth,  to  echo  in  the  memory  through  the  autumnal 
days,  is  : 

"  Sweet,  perchance,  some  day  will  it  seem  e'en  this  to  remem- 
ber." 

By  many  a  haunting  verse  like  this  does  the  Roman  poet 
steal  into  the  innermost  recesses  of  the  human  heart. 

Of  course  his  constant  fame  creates  a  presumption,  at 
least,  of  supreme  power.  No  ancient  author  was  so  widely 
known.  Even  in  Juvenal's  day  the  -^neid  had  become  a 
well-thumbed  text-book  in  Roman  schools.  It  is  asserted 
that  if  all  his  own  MSS.  had  been  lost,  his  chief  works 
could  have  l)Ocn  restored  from  citations  by  others.  Sta- 
tins is  perfectly  sincere,  as  he  sends  his  own  proud  master- 
piece forth  : 
"  O  my  Thebaid,  wrought  for  twice  six  years  without  ceasing, 

Live,  I  pray  :  nor  yet  draw  nigh  to  the  holy  TEneid. 

Follow  her,  rather,  afar,  and  always  worship  her  footprints." 


VIRGIL  157 

To  Dante,  rising  high  above  his  own  mediaeval  time. 
Homer,  Aischylos,  Pindar,  Sophocles,  and  other  Hellenes 
were  still  all  but  invisible.  Yet,  in  any  case,  he  might 
have  chosen  the  court  poet  of  the  first  and  greatest  Koman 
emperor  to  be  his  guide  in  all  merely  human  wisdom  or 
art.  He  may  have  been  influenced,  more  than  he  knew, 
by  his  own  political  creed,  which  saw  no  escape  from  utter 
anarchy  save  in  the  revival  of  "  Caesar's"  supremacy. 

More  impressive,  to  us,  perhaps,  than  this  tribute  of 
Dante  to  Virgil,  is  Tennyson's  greeting  : 

"Light  among  the  vanished  ages,  star  that  gildest  yet  this 
phantom  shore. " 

That  ray  of  serene  consolation  should  not  be  shut  out 
from  any  appreciative  soul.  On  the  purely  artistic  side, 
again,  it  is  worth  the  toil  of  learning  the  Latin  speech,  to 
verify  another  word  of  noble  courtesy  from  the  English 
Laureate,  when  he  hails  Virgil  as  : 

"  Wielder  of  the  stateliest  measure  ever  moulded  by  the  lips 
of  man. " 

In  this  among  other  ways  Virgil  is  un-epic,  that  we  con- 
stantly need  the  story  of  his  own  life  to  understand  aright 
his  work.     It  may  be  possible  to  trace  the  two  together. 

Publius  Vergilius  Maro  was  born  of  very  humble  parent- 
age in  Andes,  a  small  village  in  the  environs  of  Mantua. 
His  father  was  a  potter,  or,  as  others  say,  a  courier's  hired 
servant,  later  married  to  his  master's  daughter,  Magia. 
This  name  of  his  mother  had  doubtless  much  to  do  with 
the  strange  metamorphosis  of  Virgil  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  his  real  career  was  quite  forgotten,  and  he  became, 
in  numberless  popular  legends,  a  chief  of  Mages  or  sorcer- 
ers. Far  more  than  in  the  case  of  Catullus,  whose  family 
enjoyed  wealth  and  social  rank  in  Verona,  is  it  probable 
that  the  poet  was  of  native  Keltic  stock.     The  valley  of 


158  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

the  Po  was  still  a  semi-foreign  province,  though  the 
*'Transpadanes"  acquired  the  right  of  Roman  citizenship, 
through  Julius  Caesar,  so  long  their  governor,  in  the 
eventful  year  49  B.C.  Scholarly  training  seems  to  have 
been  easily  accessible  among  them,  and  to  have  been  re- 
ceived with  the  fresh  enthusiasm  of  an  unjaded  race.  This 
Mantuan  peasant,  like  Horace's  freedman  father,  was 
eager,  and  in  some  way  able,  to  give  his  brilliant  son  the 
best  advantages. 

Virgil's  verse-making  appears  to  have  begun  in  very 
early  boyhood.  His  first  lines,  preserved  by  his  chief 
biographer,  Suetonius,  are  an  elegiac  couplet  on  a  famous 
outlaw : 

*'  Under  this  mountain  of  stones  is  covered  a  robber,  Ballista. 
Safely  by  day  or  by  niglit,  traveller,  fare  on  your  way." 

Unimportant  as  it  seems,  this  is  imitated  so  early  as  Ovid. 

Next,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Virgil  is  credited  with  the 
"  Gnat,"  a  poem  still  extant.  In  414  hexameters  we  are 
told  how  the  bite  of  the  insect,  though  repaid  only  by  a  fatal 
slap,  awakens  the  cow-herd  and  saves  him  from  a  venom- 
ous serpent.  The  injured  ghost  of  the  gnat,  again  visit- 
ing by  night  the  sleeping  herdsman,  gives  a  long  account 
of  the  under-world.  This  poem,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  is 
tasteless  enough  in  plot  to  be  ascribed  even  to  an  ordinary 
boy  of  sixteen.  In  certain  metrical  features,  however, 
notably  the  avoidance  of  elision,  it  shows  a  later  stage  of 
pedantic  accuracy  than  the  mature  Virgil  ever  reached.  It 
is  probably  not  his,  but  certainly  was  ascribed  to  him  very 
early.  The  Octavius  to  whom  it  was  dedicated  was  doubt- 
less the  emperor.  Perhaps  tliese  verses  are  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  legend  that  the  poet  and  the  prince  were 
schoolmates  in  early  boyhood. 

Certainly,  at  the  age  of  sixteen — when  Octavian  was 
only   nine — Virgil  was  in  Rome,  studying  rhetoric  under 


VIRGIL  159 

the  best  masters.  Abont  this  time  he  transferred  his  alle- 
giance to  philosophy,  and  bade  solemn  but  lingering  fare- 
well to  verse  ;  in  affectionate  verses,  if  they  be  indeed  his  : 

"  Begone,  O  Muses,  ay,  begone  :  altho' 
Sweet  Muses  ;  for  we  will  the  truth  confess. 
Sweet  have  ye  been  !     And  on  my  pages  look 
Ye  yet  again  ;  but  modestly,  nor  oft." 

His  new  master  was  a  famous  Epicurean,  named  Siron. 
This   is  iust  about  the  date  of   Lucretius's 
death,  and  the  very  year  in  which  the  rather 
slight  allusion  to  that  poet's  work  occurs  in  the  letters  of 
Cicero  ad  Quint.   Cicero.     It  sccms  more  than  likely  that  the 
frat.,  ii.,  II,  4.  young  Mantuan  strove  to  attain  to  that  se- 
rene disbelief  as  to  the  spiritual  world,  that  lofty,  care-free 
view  of  this  life,  which  Lucretius  promises  to  men  through 
his  own  austere  creed.     The  influence  of  the  elder  poet  is 
clearly  traceable   in   many  passages,  but  the  warmer  im- 
agination of  Virgil  brought  him  back,  before  the  Sixth 
^neid   was    composed,    to  a  more  spiritual    mysticism, 
closely  akin  to  Plato's. 

Yet  perhaps  the  haunting  echo  of  agnostic  doubt,  at 
least,  is  heard  in  the  famous  passage  ^neid,  VI.,  893-98, 
where  ^neas  and  the  Sibyl  leave  the  under-world  at  last 
through  the  gate  of  ivory,  by  which  unreal  dreams  come 
forth  to  men.  Certainly  there  is  something  quite  like 
envy  in  the  passage,  presently  cited,  which  is  generally  un- 
derstood as  an  allusion  to  Lucretius,  who  claimed  to  have 
trampled  religion  under  foot.  Yet  we  have  seen  that  both 
Epicures  and  Lucretius,  while  denying  to  the  gods  the  crea- 
tive or  governing  power,  still  professed  belief  in  their  im- 
mortal and  changeless  existence.  Virgil,  like  nearly  all 
men  of  creative  imagination,  clung  to  the  hope  of  endless 
life  for  the  human  soul  as  well.  The  mysteries  of  creation 
and  of  Nature's  laws,  which  Lucretius  fancied  his  science 


160  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

liad  fully  solved,  Virgil  hardly  dares  hope  that  inspiration 
will  ever  reveal.  The  whole  passage  is  so  clearly  illustrative 
of  Virgil's  early — and  lasting — convictions,  that  we  may 
properly  cite  it  here  as  from  his  inner  biography, 

"Happy  are  they,  beyond  man's  lot,  if  aware 
aeorglc  II..  458-  ^^  ^^^  blessing. 

94. 

Husbandmen,   to  whom,  remote  from  clash- 
ing of  armies. 
Earth,  repaying  her  debts,  aecordeth  an  easy  existence. 
.     .     .     Dearest  of  all,   it   is  true,   unto   i7ie   are  the  sweet- 
toned  Muses. 
Sacrifice  unto  them  in  eager  devotion  I  offer. 
May  they,  accepting  it,  teach  me  the  paths  of  the  stars  in  the 

heavens, 
Luna's  phases,  the  sun's  diverse  eclipses,  and  wherefore 
Earth  is  shaken,  or  why  the  billows  are  fiercely  uplifted. 
Why  do  the  wintry  suns  so  hasten  to  dip  in  the  ocean  ? 
What   is  the  power  meantime  that  our  wearisome  nights  is 
retarding  ? 

Yet  if  it  be  not  mine  to  attain  to  the  secrets  of  Nature, 
Since  by  the  sluggish  blood  about  my  heart  I  am  hindered, 
Yet  be  the  fields  my  delight,  with  the  rivers  that  water  the 

valleys  ; 
Surely   the   streams   I   may   love,    and    forests,   forgetful   of 

glory     ... 
Blessed  indeed  is  he  who  attaineth  the  sources  of  all  things, 
Whoso  under  his  feet  each  mortal  terror  has  trampled. 
Even  relentless  Fate,  with  the  roar  of  insatiate  Hades. 
Yet  is  he  happy  who  winneth  the  rustic  divinities'  friendship: 
Pan,  and  the  sisterhood  of  the  Nymphs,  and  the  hoary  Sil- 


These  tones  are  the  sincerest  in  all  Virgilian  song. 
Some  of  the  lines  are  actually  relocated  in  the  yEneid. 
lie  wavers  between  faith  and  doubt;  he  returns  to  simple 
and  rural  nature /or  consolation.     Nothing  could  be  more 


MELPOMEXE,    YIRGIL,    AXD    CLIO. 
Hiidrnmetum  mosaic  at  Susa,  Tunisia. 


VIEGIL  161 

modern,  more  like  Clough's  or  Matthew  Arnold's  verse.  As 
for  the  rude  local  gods  whom  he  names,  they  but  typify 
the  familiar  scenes  themselves.  Educated  Komans,  from 
Cicero  down,  were  only  more  cautious  than  Lucretias,  not 
more  credulous.  No  serious  enlightened  man  believed 
the  Olympian  myths,  or  their  freely  embroidered  Latin 
equivalents.     All  large  constructive  faith  was  dead. 

But  this  lover  of  rustic  life,  of  the  old  simple  ways  and 
faiths  of  his  own  people,  was  early  drawn  into  the  service 
of  the  imperial  court  and  dynasty,  which  considered  the 
outworn  Olympic  theology,  and  especially,  with  it,  the 
worship  of  the  dead  Julius  and  the  living  Augustus,  as  an 
eminently  desirable  and  edifying  belief  :  for  the  people. 
That  the  rather  undignified  and  jocular  Octavian,  in  his 
own  familiar  circle  which  included  both  the  poets,  failed 
to  ridicule  such  pretensions  for  himself,  few  will  believe. 
Even  in  a  public  reading  at  court,  such  fulsome  passages 
as  Aeneid,  VI.,  791-805,  can  hardly  have  been  really  agree- 
able to  poet  or  patron.  It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that 
Virgil  actually  ventures  to  intimate  his  disapproval  of 
Julius's  action  in  beginning  the  war  with 
iCneid,  vi.,  834-.  Pompey. 

i)ante/purga^°'  "  Thou,  be  the  first  to  refrain,  who  derivest 
torlo,  i.,40-109.  thy  race  from  Olympus  ! 

Cast  thou  weapons  out  of  thy  hands." 

Every  such  gleam  of  free  speech  is  doubly  welcome.  A 
yet  bolder  half-line  on  Cato,  making  him  judge  in  the 
under-world,  is  splendidly  amplified  by  Dante. 

However,  not  Virgil's  sense  of  policy  alone,  but  sincere 
gratitude  also,  bade  him  tune  his  courtly  harp.  After  the 
decisive  victory  at  Philippi  the  lands  of  the 
'*^  "  '  .-  -  towns  that  had  opposed  the  triumvirs  were 
generally  confiscated,  to  sate  the  rapacious  and  unruly  sol- 
diers of  the  legions.     Virgil,  early  fatherless,  had  in  some 


162  THE    AUGUSTAN-    AGE 

way  acquired  a  small  farm  of  his  own  near  Cremona.  From 
this  he  was  ejected,  with  some  danger  even  to  his  life. 
But  Asinius  Pollio,  then  governor  of  the  district,  witli  the 
poet  Cornelius  Callus  and  the  learned  lawyer  Alfenus 
Rufus,  interested  tiiemselves  warmly  for  him,  and  made 
him  personally  known  even  to  the  young  Octavian,  who 
was  already  master  of  Italy. 

The  exact  final  result  is  not  clear.  In  the  first  Eclogue 
Virgil  seems  to  be  thanking  Augustus  for  his  restoration. 
Later  we  find  him  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  Campanian  cstate> 
doubtless  a  gift,  like  Horace's  Sabine  farm.  Furthermore, 
both  poets  appear  to  have  had  some  domicile  near  Tarentum 
also,  as  well  as  at  Rome  itself.  Mgecenas's  precise  share  in 
Virgil's  prosperity  is  disputed. 

BUCOLICS 

Of  the  ten  poems  known  as  Bucolics  or  Eclogues  some 
had  doubtless  already  appeared  singly.  These  are  the  ear- 
liest unquestioned  Virgilian  works.  This  group,  indicated 
by  the  title  as  a  selection,  was  evidently  arranged  by  Virgil 
in  the  present  order,  and  was  issued  about  the  year  39  B.C. 
Each  is  brief,  the  longest  111  verses,  and  all  are  in  hexam- 
eterSo 

These  poems  are  nearly  all,  in  form,  dialogues,  or  songs, 
of  shepherds  .  The  debt  to  Theocritos  is  groat,  and  openly 
avowed,  many  lines  being  more  or  less  perfect  translations. 
With  the  accurate  Sicilian  scenery  of  the  Greek  poet  are 
mingled  many  touches  true  only  of  northern  Italy.  But 
tills  is  the  least  of  the  incongruities.  The  names  of  his 
great  Roman  friends.,  political  references,  adulation  of  the 
Emperor,  are  mingled  with  the  chatter  of  the  clowns. 
Recondite  mystical  allusions,  mythical  touches,  and  over 
all  the  witcliery  of  a  dreamy,  languorous  style,  made  this 
indeed  a  novelty  in  literature. 


VIRGIL  163 

The  various  elements,  and  tlieir  reluctant  fusion,  may 
be  seen  especially  in  the  tenth  Eclogue.  The  Roman 
soldier-poet  Gallus  is  its  centre.  His  jilting  by  some  fickle 
lady  is  made  more  prominent  than  most  lovers  would  desire. 
He  is  descried  lying  under  a  lonely  rock  in  Arcadia,  while 
even  the  mountain-peaks  drop  tears  for  him,  and  Pan,  Sil- 
vanus,  and  Apollo  come  to  console  him.  Doubtless  this 
Apollo  is  the  poets'  overlord,  in  the  Arcadia  of  romance  or 
dreamland.  Yet  the  vines  trained  over  willow-trees  make 
a  distinctly  Lombardesque  touch.  Gallus  himself  utters 
exactly  half  of  the  77  verses,  and  finally  decides  that  Love 
can  neither  be  resisted  nor  beguiled. 

"Amor  conquereth  all  ;  let  us  too  yield  unto  Amor." 

Yet  the  poem  is  all  Virgil's.  The  beginning  and  close  even 
mark  in  conventional  phrases  its  position  as  last  of  the 
Bucolics.  It  is  a  tangled  web  of  absurdities.  Many  of  the 
best  touches  are  suggested  by  Theocritos,  in  whose  pasto- 
rals they  were  far  more  truthful  bits  of  local  color.  Yet 
even  here  no  one  can  doubt  that  a  poet,  however  bewil- 
dered in  his  own  mazy  fancies,  is  singing  sweetly. 

The  dead  Daphnis,  of  whom  both  shepherds  chant 
praises  in  the  Fifth  Eclogue,  can  hardly  be  other  than 
Julius  Caesar.  He  is  already  on  the  threshold  of  Olympus, 
is  worshipped  on  an  equality  with  Apollo,  is  the  good 
Genius  of  the  peaceful  time  just  beginning.  The  very 
mountains  and  hills  cry  aloud  in  his  praise,  the  forests 
raise  the  song  : 

"  A  god,  a  god  is  he ! " 

The  most  lofty  and  famous  of  all,  however,  is  the  Fourth 
Eclogue,  uttered  in  the  poet's  own  person,  yet  in  Theoc- 
ritean  tones  still. 

"  Now  let  us  sing  on  a  loftier  theme,  ye  Sicilian  Muses." 


164  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

In  Pollio's  consulship  is  to  be  born  a  child  that  shall 
indeed  bring  back  the  age  of  gold.  As  he  grows,  venom- 
ous herbs  shall  perish,  the  serpent  shall  die. 
The  plough,  the  harrow,  and  the  pruning- 
hook  will  be  needed  no  more.  It  is  not  strange  that  men 
long  fancied  these  verses  were  echoes  of  Isaiah's  language, 
or  even  a  directly  inspired  prophecy  of  the  Messiah.  Such 
notions  are  long  since  abandoned.  The  child  so  eagerly 
expected  must  have  been  the  fruit  either  of  Octavian's  or 
Antony's  recent  marriage.  If,  as  is  likely,  it  was  Augus- 
tus's infamous  daughter  Julia,  the  prophet  was  blind  in- 
deed. 

These  ten  pastorals,  eight  hundred  and  thirty  verses  in 
all,  made  the  poet  famous.  The  voice  of  praise  was  loud 
and  enthusiastic  from  the  first.  Shy  Virgil  in  the  Eoman 
streets  was  beset  by  admiring  crowds,  and  once  at  least 
overwhelmed  with  a  general  ovation  in  the  theatre.  Per- 
haps parody  is  the  final  evidence  of  wide-spread  fame,  and 
this  also  began  at  once.  Some  examples  that  are  reported 
seem  but  banter  and  fun,  as  when  a  mere  inserted  stop 
before  a  final  word  changes 

"  Fresh  milk  neither  in  summer  nor  yet  in  winter  is  lacking," 

to 

"Fresh  milk  neither  in  summer  nor  yet  in  winter  I  'tis  lack- 
ing." 

Perhaps  the  provincial  poet  was  seriously  accused  of  false 
or  faulty  Latin.     Thus  in  the  familiar  opening  line  : 

"  Tityrus,  you  as  you  lie  by  the  wide-spreading  beech-tree  are 
covered," 

the  use  of  tcgmbie  seems  sharply  attacked  in 

'^  Tityrus,  why,  if  your  toga  be  warm,  such  a  coverlet  alBo?" 


VIRGIL  165 


GEORGICS 


The  Georgics,  in  fonr  books,  two  thousand  one  hundred 

and   eighty  hexameters,  constitute   a  far  more  sustained 

task.     The  story  that  they  occupied  Virgil 

36-39  B.C.  (?)  -^  /.  1,1 

seven  years  would  make  him  complete  less 
than  one  verse  each  day.  They  do,  however,  reveal  the 
utmost  care  and  polish.  Not  later  than  the  year  29  B.C. 
these  books  were  complete,  and  were  read  aloud  by  Mae- 
cenas and  Virgil  to  Augustus  *'  in  a  continuous  four  days 
session,"  says  Suetonius,  though  so  many  hours  would  more 
than  suffice  for  the  mere  reading,  without  discussion. 

The  work  seems  to  have  been  requested,  or  even  ordered, 
by  Maecenas.  A  serious  attempt  to  revive  the  neglected 
agriculture  of  Italy  it  can  hardly  have  been  considered, 
by  either  of  them.  Indeed,  Virgil  frankly  indicates  his 
desire  to  ''bestow  honor  upon  an  ignoble  theme."  The 
need  of  such  a  revival  had  been  realized  since  the  time  of 
the  Gracchi,  at  least.  Gate's  book  has  been  mentioned, 
and  also  Varro's  treatise  in  dialogue-form,  which  was  com- 
posed in  36  B.C.,  so  may  have  sprung  from  the  same  sug- 
gestion that  produced  the  Georgics. 

Virgil  nominally  takes  Hesiod  as  his  guide,  yet  he  gives 
us  far  less  plain,  practical  advice  than  did  the  old  Boeotian 
peasant.  As  Hesiod  managed  to  include  accounts  of  Prome- 
theus, Pandora,  the  five  Ages,  so  Virgil  more  than  rivals 
him  by  world-wide  digression  in  quest  of  nobler  poetic 
fields.  The  weather  signs  in  Book  I.  are  largely  drawn 
from  the  Greek  Aratos's  Prognostics  :  yet  even  here  Virgil 
is  far  more  anxious  to  please  and  surprise  as  a  poet  than  to 
•teach  practical  meteorology. 

AVith  all  this,  in  a  poem,  certainly  no  one  will  quarrel  : 
and  even  he  who  reads  for  didactic  uses  may  actually  learn 
something  of  grain  culture  from  Book  I.,  more  from  Book 
II.  as  to  trees  and  grape-vines.     Book  III.,  on  the  breed- 


166  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

iiig  and  care  of  domestic  animals,  is  less  suitable  for 
scholastic  use.  The  long  and  rather  arrogant  prologue 
foreshadows  a  great  epic  on  Augustus's  military  exploits, 
a  promise  of  which  the  iEneid  is  to  some  extent  a  fulfil- 
ment. 

Lastly,  Book  IV.  is  devoted  to  bees.  This  section,  how- 
ever, is  affected  by  a  tradition  most  injurious  to  Virgil's 
repute  for  loyalty  and  courage.  The  great  commentator 
Servius  remarks,  on  the  Tenth  Eclogue,  that  the  latter 
half  of  the  Fourth  Georgic  also,  as  first  published,  was 
entirely  taken  up  with  Gallus's  praises.  In  27  B.C.  Gal- 
lus  incurred  the  ill-will  of  Augustus,  was  exiled,  and 
ended  his  own  life  by  falling  upon  his  sword.  Imperial 
revenge  pursued  him  still.  Virgil  consented  to  remove 
this  laudatory  passage,  and  substituted  for  it  the  long  ac- 
count of  Thessalian  Aristaeus,  and  his  device  for  secur- 
ing bees,  doubtless  also  the  interwoven  episode  on  Or- 
pheus and  Eurydice.  The  story  seems  to  be  authentic, 
and  Augustus's  success  in  suppressing  the  earlier  edition 
has  proved  complete. 

Most  classical  scholars  would  agree  upon  the  Georgics  as 
the  most  perfect  and  artistic  poem  in  all  Latin  literature. 
The  material  is  one  in  Avhicli  Virgil's  lack  of  dramatic  and 
constructive  force  is  felt  as  little  as  possible.  Indeed,  the 
subject  is  so  flexible,  the  general  method  is  so  discursive, 
that  any  digression  can  be  and  is  gracefully  justified,  or 
even  half-concealed.  Probably  many  lyric  flights  of  early 
years,  many  long-hoaixled  musical  phrases  or  fancies,  are 
here  imbedded  in  the  mosaic  pattern. 

The  display  of  Alexandrian  erudition,  the  allusions  to 
obscure  Hellenic  names  or  legends,  may  better  please  the 
learned  historian  or  mythologist  than  the  mere  lover  of 
pure  art  and  beauty.  We  must  always  remember,  how- 
ever, that  real  classic  mythology  is  nearly  all  of  Greek 
origin,  that  plagiarism  then  bore  no  stigma,  that  indeed 


r 


M«i« 


GEUKCilCS,    IV..    11,S-124,    AXD    ILLUSTRATIOX. 
From  a  A'irgil  manuscript  in  the  Vatican. 


VIRGIL  167 

tliese  ver}'  allnsions  are  often  the  only  possible  ackno\\  1- 
edgment  of  Virgil's  debt  to  his  masters.  Finally,  he  who 
enjoys  only  purely  creative  genius,  or  communion  with 
nature  in  her  elemental  forms,  will  find  little  indeed  to 
satisfy  him  in  the  Latin  poets — save  only  Lucretius. 

^NEID 

It  was  doubtless  by  imperial  command,  in  some  form  or 
other,  that  the  poet  spent  his  last  eleven  years  on  his 
national  ei3ic.  Not  Augustus,  and  not  ^neas,  is  the  pro- 
tagonist in  this  largest  and  most  ambitious  work  of  Virgil. 
Rather  in  the  long  rolling  hexameter  measure,  repeated 
almost  ten  thousand  times,  we  seem  to  hear  the  resistless 
tread  of  a  tireless  folk,  pushing  on  through  the  changing 
centuries  to  the  overlordship  of  Latium,  of  the  peninsula, 
of  the  wide  Mediterranean  world.  Though  the  poet's 
tenderest  love  is  always  for  far-away  Lombardy,  though  he 
detests  the  imperial  city  where  the  clients  throng  at  dawn 
at  the  patron's  haughty  palace-gates,  yet  in  his  national 
pride  he  too  is  a  Roman.  The  most  famous  utterance  of 
this   feeling,    in  Virgilian   or  any  other   Latin    verse,   has 

already  been  cited.     It  is  the  culmination  of 
Supra,  p.  5.  -^  . 

the  passage  in  the  Sixth  Book,  where  a  pro- 
cession of  heroes,  his  unborn  Roman  descendants — an  ar 
ray  longer  far  than  the  line  of  Banquo's  crowned  children — 
passes  before  Aeneas's  astonished  eyes. 

Again,  when  the  magic  shield  is  created  by  Vulcan,  the 
imitative  artist  improves  in  one  respect  upon  the  Iliad,  by 
/Eneid,   viii.,       drawing   the  carven  scenes   from   the   later 
626  728.  events  of  Italian  history.   Here  not  merely  an- 

cient legends,  but  Cleopatra,  Augustus,  even  mere  mortals 
still  living,  like  Agrippa,  are  included.  In  these  historical 
passages  Ennius  was  doubtless  Virgil's  most  dangerous 
rival. 


168  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

It  was  not  strange  that  early  Roman  chroniclers,  or 
Greek  flatterers,  seized  upon  the  Homeric  -^neus  as  the 
best  available  link  between  the  old  mythic  cycle  and  the 
rather  rude  and  prosaic  Roman  annals.  The  Trojan  race, 
though  deservedly  punished  for  upholding  Paris's  crime, 
had  long  enjoyed  the  highest  favor,  and  still  retained  the 
love,  of  Zeus  and  other  gods.  A  passage  in  the  Iliad 
makes  a  hostile  divinity,  Poseidon  the  sea-lord,  announce 
^neas  as  the  future  ruler  and  parent  of  rulers  over  the 
Trojan  people.  There  is  no  hint  of  a  migration.  Even  if 
this  be  an  interpolation,  that  particular  Ilomerid,  at  least, 
was  apparently  singing  to  please  an  Asiatic  monarch's  ear, 
who  claimed  descent  from  Aphrodite's  beloved  son. 

A  fragment  from  a  lost  play  of  Sophocles  depicts  ^neas, 
with  child  and  sire,  in  the  familiar  group,  setting  forth  into 
exile,  we  know  not  whither.  A  Sicilian  poet,  Stesichoros, 
brought  him  on  a  westward  voyage  to  his  own  lovely  island. 
The  junction  with  the  Romulus-myth  was  at  first  made 
awkwardly,  by  assigning  the  eponymous  founder  to  ^ueas 
as  son  or  grandson.  Soon,  however,  the  gap  of  over  four 
centuries  between  Troy's  fall  and  Rome's  origin,  according 
to  the  received  chronology,  made  requisite  the  long,  shad- 
owy line  of  Alban  kings  between  yEneas  and  Romulus. 

This  needed  stop-gap  is  cleverly  utilized  by  oilr  poet  in 
Zeus's  opening  prophecy.  ^Eneas  is  to  rule  but  three  years, 
Ascanius  thirty,  his  Alban  successors  three  hundred,  while 
as  to  the  Romans,  says  the  king  of  the  gods  : 

"Neitlxer  a  limit  in  time  nor  yet  of  power  I  assign  them  : 
Empire  endless  1  grant." 

Such  passages  helped  to  associate  Virgil  with  the  undying 
reverence  for  Rome  in  mediaeval  times.  Dante  clearly 
regards  him  as  a  prophet  of  the  papacy  and  its  spiritual 
supremacy. 

The   weakest   link    in    the  chain  is  the  connection  of 


VIRGIL  169 

Caesar  with  the  sacred  line.  jEneas's  son  Ascanius,  says 
Virgil,  coming  from  Troy,  or  Ilium,  would  naturally  be 
called  Ilus,  the  Ilian.  What  more  natural  than  the  softer 
form  lulus,  from  which,  finally,  the  adjective  lulms  is  self- 
evidently  derived.  A  mercenary  herald's  college,  inventing 
Norman  ancestry  for  a  millionnaire  parvenu,  could  hardly 
be  more  ingenious. 

It  is  well  known  that  Virgil  wished  his  unfinished 
^neid  to  be  destroyed.  This  would  doubtless  have  been 
almost  impossible.  Copies  of  large  portions,  at  least,  must 
have  been  in  various  hands.  The  work  appears  to  be 
essentially  complete,  and  certainly  is  preserved  in  an  in- 
comparably more  perfect  state  than  Lucretius's  treatise. 
The  brother-poets  who  published  it  did  not  even  venture 
to  piece  out  the  rather  frequent  half -lines,  which  are  the 
clearest  evidence  that  the  final  touches  were  never  given. 
Minor  discrepancies  exist,  as  in  every  human  labor  so 
extensive  and  detailed.  Yet  the  story  begun  is  fairly 
finished. 

Even  the  sudden  close,  at  the  death  of  ^neas's  rival  in 
love  and  war,  may  be  itself  a  strong  piece  of  constructive 
criticism.  Many  students  hold  that  the  original  Iliad,  or 
Achilleid,  ended,  and  wisely  ended,  where  Hector  pants 
out  his  life  at  Achilles's  feet.  Possibly  Virgil  agreed  with 
them. 

The  real  consummation  has  occurred  just  before  the 
duel  of  Turnus  and  ^neas,  when  Jupiter  bids  Juno 
abandon  the  lost  cause,  and  she  makes  reluctant  but  whole- 
hearted submission.  The  only  boon  she  demands,  and 
receives,  is  that  the  name  of  the  Trojans,  so  long  hateful 
to  her,  shall  be  effaced.  These  divine  sky-drawn  figures 
are  certainly  large,  dignified,  stately,  and  if  they  be  some- 
what dim,  and  wavering  in  outline,  we  must  remember  that 
their  poetic  creator  is  upborne  by  no  enthusiastic  living 
faith,  among  his  hearers  or  in  his  own  heart.      At  least 


170  *  THK    AUGUSTA^r   AGE 

the  full  tones  of  national  pride  resound  once  again  in  theii 
words.     Juno  makes  the  request : 

"  Still  let  Lutinm  abide,  and  the  kings  for  ages  in  Alba. 

Call  them  not  Teucrians  now,  nor  named  with  the  name  of 
the  Trojans, 

Fallen  is  Troy;  and  fallen  alike  be  the  name  with  the  na- 
tion.    .     .     ." 

And  Jupiter  answers  : 

"  Surely  the  Latian  name  shall  abide,  and  the  Teucrians  only 
Merge  in  the  race  they  join.     Both  manners  and  rites  will  I 

give  them. 
So  shall  a  people  arise,  with  the  blood  of  Ausonia  mingled, 
High  in  piety  over  men,  or  even  immortals. 
Never  another  race  like  them  shall  honor  thy  altars." 

We  certainly  do  not  love  and  cherish  Virgil,  however, 
chiefly  for  these  full-mouthed  utterances  of  national  feel- 
ing, nor  do  we  believe  later  antiquity  did.  It  is  easy  to 
credit  the  tradition  that  he  wrote  out  his  entire  plot,  rap- 
idly, in  prose,  and  then  elaborated  each  book  or  lesser  epi- 
„    ..      „  sode  as  the  spirit  moved.      Many  a  minor 

/Eneid,  V,  833-  ^  -J 

63  ;  episode,  like  Palinurus's  death,   is  as  com- 

vi.,  337-62.  plete  as  an  Iloratian  ode,  and  often  irrecon- 
cilable in  detail  with  a  passage  of  some  other  book. 

The  choice  of  Books  II.,  IV.,  and  VI.,  for  the  great  read- 
ing at  court  was  well-advised.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  all 
three  deal  with  incidents  previous  to  ^neas's  first  arrival  in 
Latium.  Each  is,  in  fact,  a  great  episode.  In  neither  is 
the  hero  the  chief  object  of  interest. 

The  loss  of  the  Greek  epic  cycle,  largely  an  appendix  to 
the  Iliad,  leaves  Virgil's  second  book  our  chief  ancient 
picture  of  Troy's  downfall,  and  cuts  off  intelligent  judg- 
ment as  to  its  essential  originality  in  detail.  The  ]3ano- 
rama  of  disaster  is  here  most  effectively  unrolled.     Priam 


VIRGIL  171 

is  the  figure  most  firmly  stamped  on  the  memory.     Cnri- 
ously  enough,  a  line  describing  his  "  headless  trunk  that 
.  lies  upon  the  shore" — whereas  he  had  simply 

'been  killed  by  a  sword-thrnst  in  his  own 
court-yard — seems  to  hint  that  the  poet  was  distracted 
by  the  relatively  recent  death  of  Pompey  :  a  character 
whose  fate  leaves  us  cold,  but  appealed  mightily  to  his 
own  generation. 

The  reader  is  expected  to  realize,  that  whatever  sin  Troy 
had  committed  has  been  fully  atoned.  The  chief  culprit, 
Paris,  was  already  dead,  and  his  very  name  is  rather  con- 
spicuous for  its  absence  from  the  poem.     A  rival,  indeed, 

/Cneid,  iv.,     ouce  applies  it  m  bitter  scorn  to  ^neas,  as 
^'5-' 7.        an  Asiatic  interloper  who  carries  olf  another's 
bride.     No  doubt  Paris  was  the  least  agreeable  of  ances- 
tral kinsmen  to  Koman  pride. 

This  question  may  be  connected  with  the  chief  problem 
of  literary  criticism   in   the  second  book.     A  vivid  and' 

/Eneid,  H.,  powerful  passagc,  in  which  Helen  appears, 
567-88.  is  missing  from  some  MSS.,  and  is  bracketed 
by  many  editors.  The  discussion  as  to  its  genuineness  is 
at  least  as  old  as  Suetonius.  Perhaps  Virgil  himself  re- 
mained in  doubt  whether  Helen  should  be  made  prominent 
at  all.  This,  again,  is  part  of  the  large  and  difficult  ques- 
tion, how  Eoman  tradition  ever  came  to  accept  a  close  and 
filial  relation  with  a  city  which  had  been  destroyed  by  the 
righteous  doom  of  the  gods,  for  a  sin  against  tlie  funda- 
mental law  of  the  family  and  the  sacred  rights  of  hospi- 
tality. 

The  unhappy  love  and  tragic  death  of  Queen  Dido  owes 
much  to  Apollonios  Rhodios's  account  of  Medea's  passion, 
but  is  a  masterpiece  in  itself.  The  purpose  of  the  episode 
seems  to  be  to  discover,  in  this  conjugal  love  turned  to 
bitterness,  the  source  of  the  long  hatred  between  the  two 
races.     It  is  needless  to  raise  historical  difficulties  over  Car- 


172  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

thaginiiin  Dido's  union  with  Trojan  iEneas — thougli  they 
shoukl  be  set  some  centuries  apart — if  the  dramatic  effect 
be  attained.  Certainly  tlie  prophetic  allusion  to  llamilcar 
and  Hannibal  is  thrilling,  even  to  us. 

"  Never  between  our  races,  I  pray,  be  love  or  alliance. 
May  thou  arise  from  my  bones,  unknown  avenger,  hereafter, 
Ever  with  sword  and  fire  to  pursue  tlie  Dardanian  settlers! 
Soon,  or  in  after  days,  whenever  the  power  is  accorded. 
Shores  be  arrayed  'gainst  shores  ;  may  the  waves  still  strive 

with  the  waters; 
Army  with  army  contend,  both  they  and  the  sons  of  their 

offspring!  " 

The  whole  treatment  of  Dido,  and  our  feeling  for  her, 
reveal  the  great  change  made  by  Christianity,  by  chivalry, 
by  modern  humanity,  in  the  attitude  toward  woman. 
Doubtless  the  Roman  listener  was  pleased  to  see  the  Punic 
queen  flouted  and  deserted.  But  an  artist  must  be  su- 
perior to  the  brutal  instincts  of  his  folk.  Homer  could 
have  taught  him  a  more  chivalric  courtesy.  Surely,  the 
Homeric  Hector  who  loved  Andromache  so  truly,  and  had 
uttered  only  words  of  kindness  even  to  Helen,  would  have 
scorned  this  cold-hearted  kinsman. 

The  visit  to  the  under-world  is  on  the  whole  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  poem.  The  belief  in  reincarnation  is  not  clearly 
reconciled  with  the  fixed  doom  of  many,  both  the  good 
and  the  evil,  in  Hades.  The  future  Romans  shown  to 
-^neas,  also,  are  not  mere  phantoms,  but  real  souls.  Yet 
tliey  too  are  withdrawn  from  the  perpetual 
'     '  cycle  of  purification,  life,  and  death.     They 

must  wait  idly  for  many  centuries,  it  would  seem,  in 
the  sequestered  shade  where  Anchiscs  reviews  them.  In 
general,  the  poet  has  little  of  Dante's  accuracy  and  consis- 
tency of  delineation.  One  cannot  plot  out  his  under- world 
at  all.     But  the  larger  ether,  the  dim-lit  majesty  of  his  un- 


,v...«*:-"v..-:.?^-riV-3l 


a^JDfmi5v.vfc.\^\l{^{AlM^&£OA^^\fvM0lT• 


^NEII),    IV..    50-01,    AXD    ILJA'STKATIOX. 
From  a  Virgil  manuscript  in  the  Vatican. 


VIRGIL  173 

earthly  realm,  give  it  an  ideal  beauty  more  like  Plato's 
great  mythic  pictures  in  the  "  Phaidros/' or  at  the  close 
of  the  "  Republic,"  than  anything  else  of  Roman  creation. 
Yet  its  culmination  in  the  passage  on  the  boy  Marcellns, 
graceful  and  pathetic  as  it  is,  must  be  considered  a  di- 
gression from  epic  propriety  into  courtly  adulation. 

The  comparative  neglect  of  the  last  six  books  by  modern 
students  is  inevitable.  The  battle  scenes,  even  in  the 
Iliad,  are  by  no  means  favorites,  and  a  suspicion  of  their 
unreality  often  creeps  over  the  reader.  Virgil,  certainly, 
was  unfamiliar  with  martial  strife  in  any  form,  and  re- 
mote indeed  from  duels  between  talkative  champions  who 
dash  about  in  chariots.  The  visible  entrance  of  the  gods 
upon  these  scenes  of  carnage  is,  in  an  Augustan  age, 
not  merely  incredible,  but  shocks  us  as  irreverent. 

In  general,  the  poet's  own  zeal  and  energy  are  not  fully 
maintained.  His  sympathies  seem  often  on  the  side  of 
Turnus  and  his  Italians,  who  fight  against  the  foreign  in- 
vader. Still,  the  last  adventures  and  generous  death  of 
Nisus  and  Euryalus  form  a  touching  episode.  Often, 
again,  the  poet's  thoughts  stray  to  calmer  scenes.  The 
rustic  luxury  of  Arcadian  Evander's  seat  of  power,  where 
later  Rome  was  to  stand,  is  lovingly  detailed. 

An  original  figure  is  the  maiden  warrior  Camilla  :  unless 
the  Amazon  queen  Penthesilea,  in  the  Greek  epic  cycle, 
was  her  lost  prototype.  This  young  martyr  of  Italian 
freedom,  as  Dante  seems  to  have  regarded  her,  is  the  first 
Virgilian  character  mentioned  in  the  Commedia,  whose  au- 
thor knew  the  whole  vEneid  by  heart.  In  the  sketch  of 
her  childhood  the  gentle  poet  reverts  gladly  to  his  own  boy- 
ish memories.  And  to  the  Georgics,  even  to  some  shining 
verses  in  the  bewildering  Eclogues,  the  truest  lovers  of 
Virgil  may  well  return  :  to  rustic  scenes,  and  unambitious 
strains. 


17-i  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

Many  sides  of  Virgilian  study  must  here  be  left  untouched. 
He  was  a  most  learned  poet,  in  the  Alexandrian  sense. 
All  earlier  Greek  and  Roman  literature,  philosophy,  mythic 
lore,  was  at  his  command.  His  allusiveness  is  much  like 
Milton's,  save  that  his  acquaintance  with  the  Hebrew 
prophets  is  not  clearly  proven.  The  amount  of  his  open 
borrowing,  of  literal  translation,  from  Homer  and  others, 
is  astonishing.  The  lines  of  Ennius  which  are  extant, 
are  largely  those  quoted  by  Macrobius  to  convict  Virgil  of 
plagiarism.  If  we  had  the  entire  literature  that  was  ac- 
cessible in  the  Augustan  age,  nearly  every  Virgilian  verse 
might  appear  a  translation  or  an  echo.  Yet  nearly  all  he 
borrows  becomes  his  own  by  royal  right  of  graceful  fitness 
in  use.  Even  as  the  expression,  in  epic  verse,  of  the  most 
imperious  and  martial  of  races,  his  ^neid  must  always  re- 
tain its  historic  prominence,  despite  the  general  feeling, 
that  his  was  the  heavy  burden  of  an  honor  unto  which  he 
was  not  born. 

THE    ''APPENDIX." 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  some  of  the  poems  in  the 
"  Virgilian  Appendix,"  ascril)ed  by  Suetonius  and  others  to 
the  poet's  early  youth,  even  to  his  sixteenth  year.  The 
"  Culex"  or  Gnat  seems  to  be  not  the  work  of  a  gifted, 
dreamy  boy,  but  of  a  clever  though  tasteless  pedant,  who 
meant  to  claim  for  it  Virgilian  authorship.  The  apj)eal  to 
Octavius  as  "  holy  child,"  and  the  prophecy 

"  Later  in  graver  tones  my  learned  Muse  shall  address  thee," 

could  hardly  have  been  uttered  by  Virgil  in  54  B.C.,  five 
years  before  Octavius's  great-uncle  became  dictator,  ten 
years  before  the  boy  took  his  kinsman's  name  or  heritage. 
It  is  a  clever  but  transparent  invention,  after  Augustus's 
elevation  to  the  highest  place,  and  after  Virgil  had  become 


VIKGIL  175 

a  court  poet.  It  is  not  Virgil's,  because  he  could  not  then 
have  done  it  so  badly. 

The  "  ^tna,"  in  646  hexameters,  is  a  scientific  essay  on 
the  origin  and  nature  of  volcanic  outbreaks.  The  last 
forty  lines  have  a  more  human  interest,  describing  an  act  of 
filial  heroism  and  miraculous  escape  in  the  time  of  a  great 
eruption.  The  poem  is  a  century  later  than  Virgil,  remote 
from  him  in  tone,  and  apparently  influenced  by  scientific 
essays  of  Seneca.  The  subject,  and  the  bad  condition  of 
the  text,  make  it  of  minor  literary  value. 

The  "Ciris"  tells  the  tragic  story  of  Scylla,  princess  of 
Megara,  who,  having  fallen  in  love  with  the  invader  Minos, 
betrays  her  father.  Minos  wins  the  town,  but  punishes  the 
traitress.  She  is  sent  out  to  sea,  lashed  in  a  boat,  and 
eventually  is  transformed  into  a  sea-bird,  to  be  forever  pur- 
sued by  her  father  in  an  eagle's  guise.  The  myth  was 
known  to  Virgil,  indeed  the  last  four  of  the  541  lines  are 
taken  bodily  from  the  First  Georgic.  The  poem  is  full  of 
neat  plagiarisms  from  Virgil  and  Catullus.  It  is  one  of 
many  evidences  that  clever  versifying  was  a  general  accom- 
plishment under  the  early  emperors. 

The  "  Dirae  "  is  a  poem  of  183  hexameters,  the  last  eighty 
of  which  are  better  regarded  as  a  separate  composition, 
usually  entitled  by  modern  editors  "  Lydia."  The  poet 
has  been  deprived  of  his  estate  by  a  rude  soldier  :  hence, 
no  doubt,  the  ascription  of  the  verses  to  Virgil.  As  Catul- 
lus's  friend  Valerius  Cato  had  a  similar  mishap,  and  also 
is  known  to  have  sung  the  praises  of  a  be- 

.  supra,  p.  123   j^^^^  Lydia,  this  work  is  often  attributed  to 

him.  The  style,  and  the  circumstances,  are  clearly  not 
Virgilian  ;  but  the  events  described  seem  to  be  those  of 
the  year  41  B.C.,  in  which  Virgil's  farm  also  was  confis- 
cated. 

The  other  poems  in  the  Appendix  are  brief,  and  of  minor 
importance.     One  in  iambic  verse  is  cited  by  Suetonius,  and 


176  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

is  quoted  here  on  a  previous  page  as  probably  genuine. 

Another  is  a  parody  on  Catullus's  famous  dedication  of  his 

yacht.     Other  traces  of  the  same  poet's  in- 

Supra,  p.  159  ^  .1  --I  T    1  , 

iiuence  are  to  be  seen  in  these  slight  experi- 
ments, as  would  be  naturally  expected.  The  metres, 
also,  are  varied.  They  may  very  well  be  in  part  boyish 
exercises  of  Virgil. 

Not  until  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  "  Moretum,"  or  Rus- 
tic Breakfast,  ascribed  to  our  poet.  It  is  not  at  all  in  his 
style,  but  probably  of  the  Augustan  age.  The  little  poem 
of  124  hexameters  is  full  of  homely  description  as  accurate 
as  a  Dutch  painting.  In  some  parts  it  reminds  us  of 
Ovid's  "  Philemon  and  Baucis,"  but  without  the  playfulness 
of  that  rather  frivolous  poet.  The  picture  is  well  worth 
studying  for  its  own  sake. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  best  English  edition  of  Virgil  is  by  Conington,  in  three  vol- 
umes of  the  "  Bibliotheca  Classica."  Nettleship's  more  laborious 
scholarship  has  increased  the  value  of  the  latest  revision.  The  poems 
of  the  Appendix,  and  the  "  Moretum,"  are  to  be  found  in  Bahrens's 
"  Poetae  Latini  Miuores."  They  are  there  atrociously  edited,  but  the 
true  text  can  be  restored  from  the  foot-notes.  Professor  Nettleship  also 
published  the  Latin  Lives  of  Virgil,  with  a  useful  essay.  The  great 
Latin  commentary  by  Servius  has  often  a  literary  quality  of  its  own. 
In  Macrobius  is  much  discussion  of  Virgil's  style,  notably  on  his 
"  plagiarism,"  with  long  lists  of  parallel  passages. 

Conington's  free  prose  rendering  of  all  the  works  is  valuable.  His 
rhymed  ^neid  in  the  galloping  metres  of  Scott,  William  Morris's 
in  fourteen-syllable  couplets,  and  Dryden's  in  heroics,  are  all  too 
swift  and  noisy  to  represent  the  original  music.  Sir  Charles  Bowen's 
version  is  also  rhymed,  is  faithful,  tasteful,  and  spirited.  His  line 
lacks  only  the  final  syllable  of  the  hexameter.  Professor  Tyrrell  in  a 
special  appendix  discusses  the  various  Virgilian  translators  most  inter- 
estingly. A  delightful  rendering  of  the  Georgics,  all  too  little 
known,  is  Miss  Harriet  Waters  Preston's,  in  an  irregular  verse  of  five 
accents  and  varying  rhyme. 


VIRGIL  177 

Sellar's  rolunie  on  Virgil  is  the  fullest  in  English.  Some  readers  find 
it  soporific.  In  French  we  may  mention  especially  Boissier's  delight- 
ful volume,  and  Sainte-Beuve's  early  work.  Here  as  everywhere 
Kibbeck's  "  Geschichte  der  Romischen  Dichtung  "  is  of  importance. 

The  writer  has  printed  two  previous  briefer  studies  on  Virgil :  in  the 
Warner  Library,  and  in  the  Chautauquan  for  April,  1898.  The  most 
famous  essay,  by  Myers,  is  rather  a  rhapsody.  Professor  Mackail's 
treatment  of  the  poet  is  more  reverent  than  the  present  one,  yet  he 
agrees  that  the  three  chief  elements  in  the  ^Eneid,  Homeric  tradition, 
Roman  patriotiflm,  and  Pantheistic  philosophy,  could  not  be  perfectly 
fused. 

Comparetti's  "Virgil  in  the  Middle  Ages"  opens  one  of  the  most 
curious  chapters  in  the  history  of  superstition.  The  early  pictorial 
illustrations  in  the  Vatican  manuscript  have  recently  been  reproduced. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

LIVY 

More  fitly  than  any  poet  may  this  author  be  set  beside 
Virgil.  Above  all  other  Latin  compositions  the  "JEneis" 
59  B.C.-  ^^^^  the  "Annales"  are  fit  for  virginal  and 

17  A.D.  boyish  ears.     These  are  the  two  great  patri- 

otic pictures  of  the  Roman  past.  Neither  artist  is  fettered 
by  any  sense  of  painful  historical  truth,  nor  yet  gifted  with 
the  largest  creative  imagination.  The  highest  charm  of 
each  is  what  we  call  style,  or  perfect  taste,  exerted  by  both 
upon  a  mosaic  of  ideas  and  materials  mainly  borrowed. 
Yet  they  have  put  their  individual  and  national  stamp  upon 
their  task.  This  is  typical  of  the  best  Roman  writing 
generally. 

Titus  Livius  also  like  Catullus,  Nepos,  and  _Virgil, 
came  from  Lombardy.  His  native  city,  IPadua,  had  the 
highest  repute  for  morality  among  all  Italian  towns.  He 
was  just  too  young  to  fight,  as  did  his  people  generally, 
against  the  triumvirs.  To  Padua  he  returned 
at  last  to  die.  Yet  his  career  seems  to  have 
been  chiefly  in  the  city  itself,  which  he  knows  perfectly. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  him  to  have  been  a  kinsman 
to  the  great  house  of  the  Livii,  into  which  Augustus  mar- 
ried, nor  indeed  a  Latin  at  all.  His  pure  gift,  like  Virgil's, 
is  quite  as  likely  to  have  come  from  an  alien  stock. 

We  boar  of  a  rhotorieal  manual  addressed  to  his  son,  and 

also  of  pliilosoiihical  essays,  some    of  them 

I.,  3P.  m  popular  style  and  dialogue  form.     The 

Seneca.  Epist .      essavs  wcrc  copiously  illustrated  with  histori- 

*''  cal  material.    Still,  Livy's  fame  must  always 

178 


LIVT  179 

have  rested  upon  a  single  essay,  his  monumental  Koman 
History. 

His  discontent  at  the  loss  of  liberty  is  hardly  veiled.  He 
speaks  despairingly  of  his  own  time  "  in  which  we  can  en- 
dure neither  onr  own  faults  nor  the  reme- 
dies.^'  One  chief  consolation  in  his  absorb- 
ing task  is  to  be  meantime  withdrawn  "  from  the  view  of  the 
evils  which  the  state  has  for  many  years  be- 
held/' Despite  personal  friendship  and  re- 
gard for  "  Augustus  Csesar,  the  restorer  and 


founder  of  every  shrine,"  Livy  shows  no  hope- 
fulness as  to  any  better  time  to  come.     The 
^Ivra^"^""""'  emperor  seems  to  have  admired  and  liked  the 
manly,  frank,  unpartisan  author,  whom  he 
Seneca,  Nat.        stigmatized  as  a  ''Pompeian."  Livy  even  vent- 
Qua;st.,  v.,        ured  to  doubt  whether  the  career  of  Julius 
the  dictator  had  been  on  the  whole  a  blessing 
or  a  curse. 

His  one  hundred  and  forty-two  books  brought  the  story 
from  ^neas  and  Romulus  down  to  the  d^ath  of  Augustus's 
step-son~T)rnsus,  in  9  B.C.  A  passage  of  Book  I.,  mention- 
ing two,  not  three,  occasions  when  Eome  was  free  from 
war  and  the  temple  of  Janus  closed,  proves  that  he  is  writ- 
ing not  later  than  26  B.C.  The  grouping  of  books  in  dec- 
ades seems  to  be  given  up  in  the  later  portions,  so  the  total 
number  need  not  indicate  a  failure  to  complete  an  appointed 
task.  Yet  the  author,  who  survived  Augustus  by  three 
years,  may  naturally  have  endeavored  to  bring  his  work 
down  to  that  emperor's  death. 

The  undertaking,  though  large,  was  not  so  enormous  as 
Martial  indicates  in  his  epigram  on  the  early  abridged 
edition. 

"  Here  into  scanty  parchment  is  monstrous  Livy  rolled, 
He  whom  by  no  means  when  entire  my  library  would  hold." 

In  number  of  words,  as  in  general  scope,  the  essay  coincided 


;-'i< 


180  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

very  closely  with  Charles  Knight's  history  of  England, 
which  also  gives  an  account  of  about  eight  centuries,  and 
traces  the  growth  of  an  empire  quite  as  vast  as  Kome's. 

It  may  well  be  that  Livy's  account  of  his  own  and  recent 
times,  if  extant,  would  entitle  him  to  rank  among  real  liis- 
toriaJis,  i.e.,  investigators  and  expositors  of  exact  truth  as 
to  the  events  of  the  past.  Of  the  entire  work,  however, 
only  a  quarter  remains.  Books  I.-X.,  XXI.-XLV.,  witha 
few  fragments,  and  a  very  brief  ancient  epitome  of  the  lost 
books.  This  list  of  contents  is  itself  often  our  sole  re- 
source. The  recovery  of  the  missing  rolls  has  been  the 
favorite  dream  of  scholars  and  romancers,  but  is  now  hardly 
to  be  hoped  for. 

At  the  arts,  literature,  social  life  of  his  people  Livy 
affords  only  chance  glimpses.  Of  military  tactics,  civic 
institutions,  and  law,  even  of  his  own  day,  he  has  barely  a 
layman's  knowledge.  Of  the  Alpine  passes  through  which 
he  describes  Hannibal  as  descending,  even  of  such  famous 
and  accessible  battle-fields  as  the  Caudine  Forks  or  Cannae, 
he  claims,  and  reveals,  no  knowledge  whatever.  Yet  even 
these  are  not  his  gravest  defects. 

Scanty  as  are,  and  were,  the  data  for  a  serious  study  of 
early  Eome,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  seriously  sought 
and  systematically  used  even  these.  The  laws  of  the  Tiings, 
the  annals  of  the  pontiffs,  the  ''  Origines  "  of  Cato,  are  but 
occasionally  and  carelessly  cited.  Sources,  no  doubt,  of  a 
very  different  quality,  he  had  in  abundance  :  the  books  of 
recent  predecessors  quite  as  uncritical  as  himself,  purely 
poetical  fictions  of  Naevius,  Ennius,  and  possibly  older 
balladists,  and  the  funeral  eulogies  which  even  he  knew  to 
be  utterly  regardless  of  truth.  If  he  com- 
pared these  sources,  it  was  merely  to  seek  at 
each  turn  the  most  interesting  version,  the  most  stimulat- 
ing suggestion.  Though  he  conforms  in  the  main  to  a 
hampering  usage  in  giving  a  separate  chronicle  of  each  year. 


LIVY  181 

the  work  is  a  rhetorical  study,  whose  single  aim  is  to  in- 
tensify our  admiration  for  the  old  Roman  patriotism,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  heroic  qualities  generally. 

Nearly  all  his  predecessors  have  vanished,  leaving  him 
master  of  the  field.  This  is  quite  true  of  his  first  decade, 
closing  with  the  year  293  B.C.  Through  the  better-known 
period  from  Hannibal's  rise  to  the  fall  of 
Macedonian  Perseus,  treated  in  twenty-five 
extant  books,  Polybios's  more  sober  and  laborious  narrative 
of teii  runs  beside  Livy's  :  and  though  fur  less  readable,  is  of 
superior  authority. 

It  is  partly  the  chance  of  survival  that  makes  Hannibal's 
career  the  chief  episode  in  Livy's  story,  and  invites  com- 
parison with  Herodotos's  account  of  Xerxes's  invasion. 
The  general  similarity  in  genius  and  position  of  these  two 
writers  has  already  been  intimated.  Direct  imitations  of 
the  elder  by  the  younger  author  can  probably 
•g..  vy,  .,  54.  ^^  pointed  out.  Both  should  be  first  read, 
and  enjoyed,  by  the  young,  in  extracts  and  episodes,  as  de- 
lightful story-tellers,  without  too  constant  effort  to  extract 
accurate  truth  from  their  glowing  pages. 

Indeed,  the  shortcomings  of  Livy,  as  seen  by  the  critical 
modern  historian,  heighten  his  charm  as  an  imaginative 
and  creative  author  :  as  a  great  Dichter.  He  is  eviden_tly 
in  love  with  his  task,  and  wins  for  himself,  as  well  as  for 
hi"s~h6i'oes,  Fearty  affection  and  ad  mi  ration,..  The  feat- 
ure in  which  he  excels  nearly  all  other  historical  writers  is 
in  the  speeches,  usually,  no  doubt,  wholly  his  own  creation. 
They  are~exce!Ient  character-studies^  and  they  also  set 
fortlTmasterf ully  the  larger  features  of  Roman  story,  of  the 
steady  march  to  world-wide  dominion.  It  is  needless,  then, 
to  combat  Macaulay^ssertion  that  "no historian  has  shown 
so  complete  an  indifference  to  truth,"  though  we  must 
smile  at  Dante's  "Livy  that  erreth  not."  In  his  first  ten 
books,  especially,  Livy  set  forth  all   the  authentic  annal- 


182  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

istic  truth  that  presented  itself  to  him,  which  was  very- 
little,  and  whatever  fond  tradition  and  his  own  imagination 
could  supply  :  which  was  much. 

There  is  no  real  disguise  as  to  all  this.  Thus  at  the 
heginning  of  Book  VL  he  confesses  that  he  has  had 
practically  no  real  data  thus  far,  the  few  records  ever 
made  having  perished  completely  when  Rome  was  sacikeil 
by  the  Gauls.  Yet  many  of  the  most  thrilling  incidents, 
dramatic  dialogues,  elaborate  speeches,  had  already  been 
set  down.  The  destruction  of  Alba  Longa,  the  murder  of 
Servius  Tullius  by  his  daughter,  the  expulsion  of  the  Tar- 
quins,  the  kingly  legends  generally,  are  hardly  read  now 
as  history  by  anyone.  The  keeping  of  the  bridge  by 
Horatius  against  Porsena  and  Tarquin,  the  winning  of 
his  honored  name  Scaevola,  "the  Left-handed,"  by  Mucins, 
most  magnificent  of  assassins,  the  terrible  justice  of  Brutus 
inflicted  on  his  own  sons,  seem  clearly  no  less  poetic  in 
quality  :  hence  their  preservation,  and  their  popularity. 

Appius  Claudius  and  his  decemvirs  are  real  men.  Their 
date  is  approximately  fixed.  Such  deeds  as  Virginius's 
may  occur  wherever  lawless  tyrants  are  defied  by  despair- 
ing fathers  and  lovers  :  but  many  details  of  Livy's  story  are 
as  clearly  imaginative  as  a  scene  of  "Lorna  Doone." 

Last  and  grandest  in  this  elder  line  of.  heroes  looms 
Camillus,  at  the  close  of  Book  X.  Yet  the  very  outlines 
of  his  romantic  life  are  probably  fabulous.  Tiuit  Brennus 
and  his  Gauls  retired,  after  the  sack,  at  their  leisure,  and 
of  their  own  free-will,  is  more  than  probable.  Indeed,  some 
details  of  this  Roman  career  show  more  effort  to  please  the 
reader's  fancy  than  to  convince  him  of  their  truth.  Espe- 
cially diverting  is  the  schoolmaster  of  Falerii,  who  treach- 
erously leads  his  noble  pupils  into  Camillus's  beleaguering 
camp.  The  chivalric  Roman  furnished  the  lads  with  rods, 
and  bids  them  flog  tlie  pedagogue  back  to  the  town.  The 
prompt  voluntary  surrender  of   Falerii,    as  a  responsive 


''mkj 


t-  .^ 


LIVY  183 

courtesy,  Livy  may  have  found  in  his  original ;  bnt  the 
neat  sermon  to  the  culprit  is  true  Livian  rhetoric  and 
antithesis  : 

"  Not  to  a  people  nor  a  commander  like  thyself  hast  thou 
come,  oh  wicked  man,  with  thy  wicked  offer.  Between 
us  and  the  men  of  Falerii  is  no  bond  formed  by  human 
compact  :  but  that  which  Nature  created  exists  and  shall 
abide.  There  are  laws  of  war  no  less  than  of  peace,  and 
these  we  have  been  taught  to  observe  with  justice  as  well 
as  valor.  We  bear  no  arms  against  childhood,  to  which 
mercy  is  shown  even  in  captured  cities,  but  against  armed 
men,  who,  nowise  wronged  nor  assailed  by  us,  attacked  the 
Eoman  camp  before  Veil.  Even  them,  so  far  as  in  thee 
lay,  thou  hast  surpassed  by  wickedness  unheard  of.  But 
I  will  conquer  here,  as  at  Veil,  by  Roman  arts  alone  :  by 
valor,  energy,  deeds  of  arms." 

Such  assertions  of  Roman  fair  play,  which  we  are  as- 
sured is  as  proverbial  as  ""^Punic  faith,"  i.e.,  Carthaginian 
treachery,  will  arouse  many  modern  echoes.  In  truth,  the 
claim  grows  at  times  monotonous,  like  the  thrice-repeated 
self-sacrifice  of  a  Decius  Mus,  to  save  a  victory  prophesied 
for  the  host  whose  commander  shall  be  slain.  Livy  has  at 
least  too  much  sense  of  literary  balance  not  to  give  the 
other  side  a  hearing.  Thus  when  a  Roman  army  was 
released,  humiliated  indeed  but  unhurt,  from  the  great 
trap  in  the  Caudine  valley,  the  consul  who  had  made  the 
treaty  bade  the  senate  repudiate  it.  Nay,  he  returned, 
without  his  men,  to  the  fatal  pass,  declared  that  his  ignoble 
surrender  made  him  now  himself  a  Samnite,  smote  the 
Roman  herald,  and  bade  his  former  people  take  up  this 
new  injury  and  carry  the  war  to  a  glorious  end.  Then  the 
gallant  and  too  chivalric  Samnite  Pontius  cries  out  in 
noble  scorn  : 

"  Will  you  always  find  a  pretext  for  repudiating  the 
pledges  made  in  defeat  ?    You  gave  hostages  to  Porsena  : 


184  THE    AUGUSTAN"    AGE 

and  by  stealth  withdrew  them.  With  gold  you  redeemed 
your  city  from  the  Gauls :  they  were  cut  down  in  the  act 
of  receiving  it.  You  pledged  us  peace,  to  regain  your 
legions  :  that  peace  you  now  cancel.  Always  you  cover 
deception  with  some  fair  mask  of  justice. "" 

Like  Virgil  when  describing  Turnus  or  Camilla,  Livy 
always  remembers  that  Pontius  and  his  brave  people  were 
Italians,  as  he  is  himself.  From  the  opening  words  of  this 
ninth  book  the  Samnite  chieftain  is  treated  by  Livy  with 
somewhat  such  chastened  pride  as  a  modern  British  his- 
torian shows  in  his  recollection  that  Washington  was  of 
pure  English  stock.  In  the  curt  epitome  of  Book  XI.  we 
read  that  thirty  years  later  "  C.  Pontius,  commander  of  the 
Samnites,  was  led  in  a  triumphal  procession — and  decapi- 
tated." One  would  gladly  hear  Livy's  comments  on  that 
example  of  Roman  gratitude,  which  Niebuhr  calls  the 
greatest  stain  on  all  their  annals. 

Often  Livy  provides  the  materials  for  correcting  his 
own  too  sweeping  or  prejudiced  assertions.  Thus,  like  his 
people  generally,  he  insists  on  the  "  perfidy  "  of  Hannibal. 
Yet  in  the  long  campaigns  that  fill  the  third  decade  we  see 
at  least  as  much  chivalric  generosity  on  the  Carthaginian's 
part  as  is  shown  by  his  opjjonents.  In  truth,  the  terror 
and  hatred  Hannibal  inspired  could  not  conceal,  even 
from  the  Romans,  a  genius  and  an  intrepid  character 
superior  to  their  own.  In  such  cases  it  is  often  gratifying 
to  see  how  fair-minded  Livy  is,  as  it  were,  in  spite  of  him- 
self. It  was,  moreover,  imjDossible  to  tell  the  tale  at  all 
without  revealing  the  wonderful  control  exercised  by  Han- 
nibal's tact  and  indomitable  will  over  savage  men  of  a 
hundred  hostile  clans  and  races. 

Few  men  read  Livy  through  with  unflagging  interest,  in 
Latin  or  in  English.  A  certain  sameness  in  the  general 
type  even  of  his  best  episodes  grows  monotonous  at  last. 


LIVY  185 

But  he  is  a  master,  perhaps  on  the  whole  the  master,  of  easy, 
rather  colloquial  Latin  prose.  As  a  storj::tdler_  he  has  at 
most  but  one  Roman  master,  the  poet  Ovid.  In  moral 
purityhe  has  no  superior  whatever.  If  the  present  chap- 
ter seems  relatively  brief,  it  is  because  any  good  history  of 
Rome,  on  whatever  scale,  must  be  largely  made  up  of  pas- 
sages more  or  less  perfectly  transferred  from  Livy's  storied 
page.  He  is  therefore  well  known  to  every  classical  stu- 
dent, and  has  always  exercised  great  influence  on  histori- 
cal narration. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  only  available  annotated  edition  of  Livy  entire  is  Weissen- 
born's,  with  German  notes.  The  Bohn  translation  is  tolerably  ac- 
curate. Books  XXI.-XXV.  are  excellently  rendered  by  Church  and 
Brodribb  in  the  Macmillan  series,  uruform  with  their  Tacitus.  The 
authority  of  Livy  as  an  historian  of  early  Rome  was  rudely 
shattered  by  Niebuhr.  Of  late  Lanciani  and  others  have  to  some  ex- 
tent returned  to  acceptance  of  his  statements,  even  as  to  the  age  of 
the  kings. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

HORACE 

Far  more  than  any  other  Latin  poet,  indeed,  all  but 
alone  among  Romans,  Virgil  is  the  idealist.  By  chance  of 
birth  Horace  is  his  twin-star.  There  is 
rather  slight  bnt  adequate  evidence  of  cor- 
dial friendship  between  them.  It  was  the  dreamer,  even, 
who  introduced  the  poor  satirist  and  lampooner  to  the 
greatest  of  patrons.  But  of  any  such  real  artistic  com- 
munion as  Goethe's  with  Schiller  there  is  no  hint :  nor 
could  it  be  readily  believed. 

Horace  is  always  wide  awake,  and  has  a  shrewd  eye  for 
his  own  earthly  interests.  Reticence,  and  good  taste,  he 
learned,  rather  late  in  life,  with  the  help  of  lu.xnrions 
patronage.  But  all  his  work  is  done  in  cool  blood.  He 
deprecates  enthusiasm,  and  laughs  at  his  own  brief  flights. 
He  holds,  and  will  retain,  a  broad  and  goodly  estate,  but 
not  in  Arcadia.  It  has  no  lofty  heights  like  the  Prome- 
thean cliff,  nor  yawning  caverns  of  mystery  like  the  Virgil- 
ian  under-world.  So  far  is  he  from  being  dramatic,  that 
we  can  hardly  cite  one  well-told  story  in  all  he  has  left  us. 
His  own  life,  within  and  without,  lies  fully  revealed  before 
us,  delineated  with  a  frank  self-satisfaction  that  makes 
him  the  little  friend  and  neighbor  of  all  sensible,  practical 
mankind. 

Horace  remains  still,  as  he  has  been  for  most  of  these 
nineteen  centuries,  the  most  quotable  and  quoted  of  au- 
thors. That  is,  his  sententious  phrases  are  the  small 
cliange,  the  current  coin,  of  worldly  wit,  of  courtly  com- 

186 


HORACE  187 

pliment,  of  universal  experience.  Even  when  carven  in 
unforgettable  form,  they  are  commonplaces  still.  Hence 
they  blend  perfectly  into  the  style  of  any  modern  satirist 
whose  mellow  wisdom  we  enjoy.  We  should  miss  the  al- 
lusion to  Black  Care,  as  she  sits  behind  the  hurrying 
horseman,  from  many  a  chapter  of  Thackeray  :  yet  it  is, 
after  all,  as  much  a  truism  as  the  Arab's  figure  of  death: 
"  the  black  camel  that  kneels  at  every  man's  gate." 

Most  of  Horace's  work  is  best  read,  and  cited,  in  bits,  as 
the  spice,  not  the  real  bread,  of  life.  Perused  in  the  mass 
it  gives  us  an  ever-growing  and  painful  sense  of  spiritual 
limitation,  of  life's  narrow  and  narrowing  round,  in  fact, 
of  half-confessed  ennui.  At  least,  a  Platonist,  an  idealist, 
who  attempts  to  discuss  Horace  at  all,  must  confess  thus 
frankly  his  own  friendly  hostility,  if  only  to  guard  the 
hearer  against  the  imperfect  sympathy,  doubtless  the  un- 
fairness, of  the  critic. 

In  contrast  with  the  meteoric  passing  of  Lucretius, 
Horace's  life-story  is  singularly  complete  and  intelligible, 
with  just  enough  romantic  adventure,  and  early  hardship, 
to  have  given  him  a  wide  view  of  the  world. 

Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  was  born  in  rustic  Venusia. 
Of  his  mother  we  hear  nothing.  His  father  was  a  former 
slave,  later  a  enactor — collector  of  taxes  or  of  private  debts 
— and  evidently  thrifty.  Horace  never  tried  to  conceal  his 
humble  origin,  and  in  the  fourth  Satire  of  his  first  book  he 
introduces  this  slave-born  father  in  a  lively  dialogue,  form- 
ing by  practical  advice  and  exemplary  warnings  the  all  but 
perfect  character  of  his  boy. 

In  Rome  that  boy,  under  his  father's  eye,  went  to  school 
in  luxury  and  well-attended.  His  master  indeed,  the  "  flog- 
Satires,  i.,6.  g^r  Orbilius,"  won  Horace's  hearty  ill-will, 
Epist.,ii..  1,70.  r^Y^^  ^^  undesirable  immortality  of  fame. 
His  strenuous  methods  were  doubtless  one  cause,  also,  of 
Horace's  lasting  dislike  for  Andronicus's  Odyssey,  Ennius's 


188  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

epic,  and  the  early  writers  generally,  who  offended  his 
polished  taste  as  Chaucer  or  Marlowe  did  Pope's. 

For  philosophy,  or  as  we  would  say,  university  advant- 
ages, Horace,  still  like  a  young  nobleman,  went  to  Athens. 
This  experience  was  interrupted  by  the  civil  war  that  fol- 
lowed Julius's  murder.  Brutus  must  have  seen  remark- 
able promise  in  the  freedman's  son  at  twenty-two,  when  he 

3  c.  made  him  a  tribune,  or  we  may  say,  a  colo- 

sat.,  I.,  6,  so.  i^gi_  Ti^e  jealousy  excited  in  fellow-students 
of  far  loftier  birth  Horace  merely  mentions  as  natural. 
He  is  proud  of  his  success. 

"  Here  at  home,  as  in  war,   to  the  foramost 
Epi8t.,i..ao,23-  T     1        •        i» 

men  was  I  pleasing." 

This  Eastern  campaigning  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
wholly  arduous.  Thus  in  one  of  the  odes,  written  for  an 
old  comrade,  it  is  recalled  how 

"  Often  we  sped  the  lingering  day 
Witli  wine  unmixt,  the  while  we  lay 
Our  shining  locks  with  Syrian  spikenard  crowned." 

Another  bit  of  local  color  is  seen  in  a  rather  disconsolate 
letter  to  a  friend  travelling  in  Asia  : 

' '  Lebedos  is  it  you  praise,  who  are  weary  of  voyage  or  travel  ? 
Yea,  and  I  too  there  would  happily  linger,  forgetting 
All  that  I  loved,  expecting  them  all  in  turn  to  forget  me  : 
There  would  I  dwell,  and  gaze  offshore  at  the  furious  waters. " 

Of  course,  utter  failure  and  shipwreck  of  fortune  came 
swiftly  to  Brutus's  followers.  Horace's  brief  military  dis- 
tinction made  surer  his  utter  fall.  Drifting  back  to  Rome, 
he  found  his  father  dead,  his  estates  confiscated.  For  some 
years  he  gained  a  scant  subsistence  in  a  position  apparent- 
ly like  our  government  clerkships  at  Washington.     The 


HORACE  189 

splendor  of  the  world's  capital  constantly  emphasized  to 
tlie  young  veteran  his  own  obscurity. 

We  know  little  in  detail  of  the  next  four  or  five  years, 
until  the  friendship  of  Virgil  and  Maecenas  lifted  Horace 
to  affluence  and  congenial  social  life.  The  cheerful  bits  of 
autobiography  cited  above  were  all  actually  composed  years 
later,  in  self-contented  retrospect.  But  his  writing  in  this 
time  of  storm  and  stress,  though  it  was  successful  in  at- 
tracting the  attention  of  the  court,  is  stained  with  truly 
Koman  vulgarity,  and  is  often  bitterly  cynical. 


SATIRES,    I. 

The  oldest  extant  composition  is  by  many  thought  to  be 

the  satire  describing  a  quarrel  in  camp  between  two  of  Bru- 

tus's  followers,  one  of  whom  is  named  Rupilius 

Rex,  or  King.     When  the  final  decision  is 

referred  to  the  commander,   the  other  litigant  closes  his 

plea,  and  the  brief  sketch  also,  with  the  bold  words  : 

"By  the  gods  on  high  I  beseech  you,  O  Brutus, 
Slay  this  King,  since  that,  as  I  think,  is  the  task  of  your 
kindred. " 

This  first  group  of  ten  satirical  pieces  was  not  made  up 
earlier  than  35  B.C.  Just  before  the  one  here  cited  stands 
in  our  collection  the  journal  of  the  famous  journey  to 
Brundisium  with  Msecenas.  So  we  must  hold  the  pros- 
perous court-poet  at  thirty  year  responsible  for  the  un- 
translatable foulness  of  the  second  Satire,  which  draws  all 
too  clearly  on  abundant  and  ignoble  experience.  It  is 
plain,  also,  that  loose  living  and  deliberate  coarseness  of 
speech  were  no  bar  to  Maecenas's  favor.  Yet  Virgil  in  the 
same  group  maintained  his  stainless  purity  of  life  and  ut- 
terance. 


190  THE   AUGUSTAN    AGE 

The  meeting  with  Virgil  and  Maecenas  en  route  to 
Brundisium  is  marked  with  sincere  and  truly  Latin  em- 
satircB,  1.,  v.,  braces.  Next  day,  at  Capua,  Maecenas  plays 
43.  ball,  but  the  poets  prefer  their  siesta,  Horace 

excusing  himself  as  weak-eyed,  Virgil  as  dyspeptic.  The 
sketch  of  this  journey  is  as  a  whole  delightful — except  four 
really  incredible  lines. 

AVith  this  first  collection  of  his  lay  sermons  on  human 
frailties  and  follies  Horace's  claim  on  the  cordial  approval  of 
the  modern  reader  begins.  The  best  descriptions  of  his 
earlier  life  are  here  to  be  found. 

Horace  did  not  regard  the  satires  as  poetry  in  the  stricter 
sense  at  all,  but  as  a  sort  of  chatty,  personal  sketches  in 
Sat.,  i.,  4,  s6-  loose  metrical  form.  The  hexameter,  used  in 
62.  them  all,  is  evidently  accepted  as  a  familiar 

Latin  measure.  In  these  light  miscellanies,  the  age,  the 
coarse  Eoman  taste,  permitted  almost  anything. 

EPODES 

But  even  these  excuses  hardly  extend  to  the  Epodes, 
which  are  severely  lyrical  in  form.  If  the  prevailing 
iambic  measure,  and  the  influence  from  the  savage  genius  of 
the  Greek  Archilochos,  seem  to  justify  bitterness,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  both  master  and  metre  are  Horace's  de- 
liberate choice.  These  seventeen  little  poems  are  his  entire 
lyric  output  down  to  the  year  31  B.C.  They  are  in  many 
keys,  the  latest  apparently  nearing  that  of  the  happy  later 
lyrics.  The  extravagant  assaults  on  the  sorceress  Canidia, 
whoever  she  was,  can  hardly  be  justified.  Other  examples 
there  are  of  personal  ill-will,  and  also  of  crudeness,  even 
„    ,  .        the  graver  artistic  sin  of  diffuseness.    The 

Epodes,    xvi.,  *=  ,  .         i.  •<•  •/ 

41-62.  longest  flight  of  Horace  s  creative  fancy,  if  it 

be  not  rather  a  translation,  is  the  account  of  the  Happy 
Isles  bevond  the  Western  Ocean.     Here  he  even  recalls  the 


HORACE  191 

prophetic  Fourth  Bucolic.  No  less  Virgilian  and  pastoral 
is  the  simplest,  sweetest,  and  best-known  of  all  the  epodes, 
beginning 

"Blessed  is  he,  afar  from  business  cares, 
As  were  the  men  of  old. "  .     .     . 

But  there  is  a  mocking  grin  like  Heine's  in  the  last  quat- 
rain, wherein  it  is  all  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  old  usurer 
Alfius,  who,  ever  dreaming  of  a  country  life,  calls  in  his 
loans  :  and  after  a  fortnight  places  them  again. 

A   passage   of   a  later  poem,  revoking   certain    'Miasty 

iambics,"  is  by  some  students  made  to  refer  to  most  or  all 

of  this  book.     But  that  is  hardly  probable. 

Odes,  I.,  i6,  1-4.  .  •'   ^ 

The  name  "  Epodes  "  is  not  Horatian,  and 
seems  to  indicate  merely  the  use  of  a  shorter  alternate  line 
in  each  cou2:>let.  As  a  whole  this  roll  is  Horace's  least  ef- 
fective utterance. 

SAHEES,    II. 

Soon  after  the  Epodes  appeared  the  second  book  of 
Satires.  The  measure  is  still  the  easy  jogging  hexameter. 
Abundant  evidence  appears  of  swift  growth 
in  these  years.  There  is  even  a  sustained 
attempt  here  at  dramatic  form,  though  all  who  speak,  like 
the  characters  at  Dr.  Holmes's  breakfast  table,  are  but  so 
many  mouthpieces  for  the  one  familiar,  equable,  and  wel- 
come voice. 

Horace  is  sweetened,  mellowed,  not  spoiled,  by  pros- 
perity. Though  he  is  frankly  proud  of  Maecenas's  friend- 
ship, he  will  not  confess  that  he  shares  the  power,  nor 
even  the  political  confidence,  of  the  court.  He  preaches 
simple  diet,  even  a  rustic  life,  yet  gives  also  a  connois- 
seur's hints  on  the  perfect  banquet.  His  heartiest  utter- 
ance is  of  his  love  for  the  Sabine  farm,  Maecenas's  most 


192  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

precious  gift.  The  country  mouse  has  much  the  better  of 
the  argument  over  his  city  kinsman.  Yet  Horace's  slave 
Davus  is  allowed  to  ridicule  his  master  for  the  restless- 
ness with  which  he  awaits,  the  furious  haste  with  which 
he  accepts,  Maecenas's  bidding  to  the  feast.  On  the  whole 
we  get  the  impression  that  our  portly  little  bachelor  is  a 
good  liver  and  a  courtier,  in  practice,  far  more  than  a 
country  gentleman,  a  student,  or  an  abstemious  philos- 
opher. 

One  of  Eugene  Field's  bold  *' Echoes"  seems  to  hit  very 
near  the  truth : 

"  When  favoring  gales  bring  in  my  ships 

I  hie  to  Rome  and  live  in  clover  ; 
Elsewise  I  steer  my  skiff  out  here 

And  anchor  till  the  storm  blows  over. 
Compulsory  virtue  is  the  charm 
Of  life  upon  the  Sabine  Farm  1 " 

Horace's  mildly  satirical,  loosely  artistic  utterance  had 
already  outlasted  its  bitterness  and  its  foulness.  But  the 
half-way  house  of  life  is  past.  Of  strenuous  effort,  of  fresh 
aspiration,  there  is  hardly  a  hint.  One  certainly  would  not 
suppose,  that  a  supremely  successful  venture,  in  an  essen- 
tially new  field,  was  just  beginning.     Yet  so  it  proved. 

ODES,    I.-III. 

Books  I.,  II.,  and  III.  of  Horace's  odes  form  a  single 
collection  of  eighty-eight  lyric  poems,  issued  by  the  author, 
and  probably  arranged  by  him  just  as  we  find  it.  The 
opening  dedication  to  *'  Maecenas,  from  ancestral  kings 
descended,"  the  yet  prouder  closing  assertion 

"  Completed  is  my  monument, 
More  durable  than  bronze, " 

the  parade  in  the  first  dozen  odes  of  nearly  as  many  novel 


HORACE  193 

and  difficult  Greek  metres, — all  this  indicates  the  fullest 
pride  and  confidence  in  the  finished  work.  Especially  not- 
able also  is  the  stanza  opening  the  third  book,  whose  first 
six  poems  seem  to  unite  in  one  stately  patriotic  ode  : 

"Songs  until  now  unsung, 
Fit  for  the  ears  of  boys  or  virgin  girls, 
I  sing,  who  am  the  Muses'  priest. " 

These  poems  appear  to  have  been  Horace's  serious  task 
for  at  least  seven  years,  beginning,  to  judge  from  all  trace- 
able historical  allusions,  when  he  was  already  thirty-five. 
This  is  our  chief,  best-known,  most  faultless  book  of  Latin 
or  indeed  of  classic  lyrics, — using  the  word  in  the  nar- 
rower sense,  which  excludes  the  larger  choral  songs  of  Pin- 
dar or  of  the  Attic  dramatists.  It  must  seem  strange  to 
many,  that  classical  scholars  accept  this  fair-wrought  artis- 
tic gift  in  a  half-querulous  spirit.  Yet  this  is  inevitable, 
and  can  be  in  some  sense  justified. 

Lyric,    Song,   as   an   individual  expression,   uttered  in 

music  and  words,  is  all  but  universal,  and  as  old  as  love, 

hate,  grief,  warlike  enthusiasm,  adoration,  or  the  sense  of 

sin  among  men.      It  doubtless  had  less  root 

Cf.  supra,  p.  4         .  . 

m  early  Latium  than  ni  most  lands.  Perhaps 
the  priestly  chant  was  there  almost  its  sole  permanent 
form.  But  to  Horace's  ears,  as  to  Catullus's,  far  clearer 
and  fuller  than  to  ours,  came  the  manifold  echoes  of  the 
older,  more  spontaneous,  and  yet  living  Hellenic  min- 
strelsy. 

Of  Greek  song-writers  proper,  four  only  are  familiar 
names  :  the  fierce  soldier  of  fortune  and  creative  genius 
Archilochos,  the  artist-pair — perhaps  also  lover-pair — of 
Lesbos,  and  the  somewhat  degenerate  later  singer  of  wine 
and  passion,  Anacreon.  Each  was  a  true  artist,  yet  all  ut- 
tered real  feelings  in  forms  fit  and  natural  to  their  speech, 
largely  original  with  themselves.      They  never  deal  in  lit- 


194  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

erary  reminiscence,  bnt  offer  ns  their  own  inner  or  outer 
visions. 

All  are  essentially  lost  poets.  Even  the  "  Anacreon- 
tics/* so  popular  with  our  grandsires  in  Moore's  para- 
phrases, are  themselves  merely  clever  imitations  in  An- 
acreon's  general  tone,  dating  from  the  later  centuries  of 
Hellenic  life.  Sappho's  love-lyric  lias  left  an  irreparable 
gap  in  the  story  of  literature. 

Horace  presents  himself  frankly  as  an  imitator  of  these 
greater  Greek  singers.  His  Epodes  were  Archilochian  in 
metre  and  spirit.  Now,  putting  Catullus's  scliool  too  has- 
tily aside,  he  makes  bold  claim  that  he  is  the  first 

Odes,  HI.,  XXX.,  "  -^olic  song  to  m^odulate 

'3-'4.  *        '  To  the  Italian  lyre." 

His  favorite  measures  are  the  Sapphic  and  Alcaic  stan- 
zas, both  used  by  him  with  a  rigid  regularity  of  form 
unknown  to  the  Lesbians  themselves,  or  to  Catullus. 

Horace  no  doubt  felt  the  superiority  of  the  Greeks.  In 
their  language  he  had  himself  composed  his  first  verses. 
These  metres  are,  in  Latin,  so  difficult  that  they  bar  out 
many  words  of  a  poetic  vocabulary  at  best  scanty,  and 
they  have  actually  never  been  used  by  anyone,  with  high 
success,  since  Horace's  day.  His  own  hearty  distaste  for 
the  exertion  of  versifying  is  often  expressed  in  more  or  less 
serious  tone.  With  painful  industry,  like  the  bee,  he 
Odes,  iv.,  ii.,  "  fashious  liis  toilsome  lays."  Among  his 
3'-*-  actual  models  must  be  included  the  learned 

Alexandrians,  with  their  love  for  far-sought  allusions  and 
myths  all  but  forgotten.  Nearly  all  Horace's  odes,  then, 
are  conscious  and  laborious  imitations  ;  many,  it  is  not 
known  how  many,  are  free  translations.  His  masters  are 
bitterly  missed. 

His  range  is  far  narrower  than  theirs.     He  recognizes 


HORACE  195 

hatred  of  tyrants  as  the  most  popular  note  of  Alcaios's 
lyre  :  but  that  note,  of  course,  he  cannot  strike.  In  some 
Greek  lyrics,  as  Alcman's,  yet  more  in  the  choral  songs  of 
Aristophanes  and  Euripides,  there  is  a  real,  a  rapturous 
delight  in  natural  scenery,  Horace  is  fully  at  home  only 
among  men.  Sappho,  again,  even  in  tantalizing  half-lines 
and  phrases,  yet  survives,  as  the  very  soul  and  voice  of 
passionate  love.  Though  Horace  has  celebrated  his  fickle 
flame  under  a  dozen  musical  Greek  names,  not  one  can 
have  inspired  a  deep  and  lasting  feeling.  Prattling  Lalage, 
Neaera  of  the  tangled  liair,  and  all  the  rest,  have  just 
enough  reality  to  help  him  turn  a  verse.  Friendship, 
with  Maecenas  and  a  few  others,  is  the  only  close  tie  Hor- 
ace knows.  The  brevity  and  uncertainty  of  life,  the  worry 
that  haunts  the  palaces  of  the  great,  a  goading,  rest- 
less discontent,  the  craving  for  peace,  are  ever  recurrent 
themes.  Far  indeed  is  this  passionless,  dreamless,  hope 
less  Epicurean  from  seeing  the  whole,  or  the  best,  of  life. 

His  art  is  exquisite,  is  indeed,  as  has  been  said,  unique 
and  inimitable  in  its  kind.  Of  all  ingenious  exercises  in 
difficult  metres  these  are  the  cleverest.  Often  a  flash  of 
loftier  poetic  insight  glorifies  one  of  his  few  and  familiar 
themes,  as  when  he  offers  sympathy  only,  not  a  word  of 
insincere  consolation,  to  Virgil  on  the  death  of  his  friend 
Varus.  Indeed  this  and  the  address  to  the  ship  that  bears 
Virgil  to  Greece  are  as  heartfelt  and  tender  as  any  lyric  of 
friendship  could  be.  The  local  color  is  often  Italian  even 
when  we  know  that  Horace  has  a  Greek  original  before 
him,  as  when,  in  a  close  echo  of  Alcaics,  he  cries  : 

"Soracte's  heights  are  white  with  snow. 
The  burdened  pines  are  bending  low, 

The  fettered  brooks  are  still. 
Heap  high  the  logs,  drive  out  the  cold, 
And  from  the  Sabine  vintage  old 

A  generous  goblet  fill." 


196  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

At  times  his  keen  humor  beguiles  us  into  a  smile,  as 
when  liis  rash  announcement  of  himself  as  a  heaven-scal- 
ing swan  draws  down  his  own  prompt  ridicule,  and  he  adds  : 

Odes,   n.,   XX.  "  Even  now  I  feel  the  change  begin! 

Version       of  o  o 

Sir  Theodore  And  see,  along  my  thighs 

It  creeps  and  creeps,  the  wrinkling  skin, 

In  sturdy  swan-like  guise; 
My  body  all  above  assumes 

The  bird,  and  white  as  snow 
Along  my  shoulders  airy  plumes 

Down  to  my  fingers  grow." 

Above  all,  we  note  the  frank,  fearless,  yet  devoted  tone 
always  held  toward  Mfficenas,  the  cordial  constancy  indi- 
cated even  when  Augustus's  frown  had  made  the  old 
minister's  friendship  less  prized  by  the  selfish  or  timid. 
Perhaps  the  boldest  note  in  the  odes  is  that  in  which  he 
reproves  some  such  utterance  of  Maecenas  as  was  mentioned 
on  a  previous  page,  and  makes  the  prophecy 
"**  "'   *  which  was  so  remarkably  fulfilled,  some  fif- 

teen years  later,  by  the  death  of  both  friends  in  the  same 
year. 

Odes,  ».,  xvll.   <'  Think  not  that  I  have  sworn  a  bootless  oath. 
Sir  Theodore 
nartin.  Yes,  we  shall  go,  shall  go, 

Hand  linked  in  hand,  whene'er  thou  leadest, 

both 

The  same  sad  road  below !  " 

This  close  friendship  included  also  Licinius  Murena,  the 
brother,  or  near  kinsman,  of  Maecenas's  wife,  much  beloved 
and  honored  by  Augustus,  but  fatally  involved  in  the  con- 
spiracy against  tlie  emperor's  life  in  23  B.C.  Horace  seems 
to  have  realized  the  danger  of  Murena's  audacious,  passion- 
ate nature,  and  addresses  him  in  one  of  the  finest  odes, 
bidding  him 


HORACE  197 


"  Not  always  tempt  the  far-off  deep, 
Nor  yet  too  timorously  creep 
Along  the  treacherous  shore." 

Most  blest,  Horace  assures  him,  is 

"  He  that  holds  fast  the  golden  mean, 
And  lives  contentedly  between 
The  lowly  and  the  great.  " 

Indeed,  the  question  whether  Horace  published  this  collec- 
tion as  early  as  the  spring  of  23  B.C.,  or  three,  even  four, 
years  later,  is  made  to  turn  largely  on  this  very  poem.  As 
Virgil  effaced  Gallus  from  the  last  Georgic,  so  Horace,  we 
are  assured,  would  not  have  issued  these  verses  after  the 
fall  of  Murena.  They  may,  however,  have  been  already 
too  well  known  to  suppress.  Many  of  the  "  occasionaP* 
poems  must  have  been  circulated  singly  as  they  were 
written.  Thus  the  oldest  datable  ode,  I.,  37,  rejoicing  at 
the  death  of  Cleopatra,  of  course  did  not  lie  seven  years  in 
Horace's  desk.     But  the  line 

"  Through  time  un-noted,  as  a  tree  doth  grow 
Marcellus's  fame" 

would  surely  have   been  either  expanded,  or  suppressed 
Odes,  i.,  xii.,        altogether,  if  Augustus's  princely  heir  had 
45-46.  Ijggjj  (jgg^(j  when  this  collection  was  made. 

So  we  are  again  brought  back  to  the  year  23  B.C.  as  the 
latest  date. 

EPISTLES,    I. 

It  was  apparently  three  years  thereafter  that  Horace 
published  the  twenty  delightful  brief  pieces  in  hexameter 
verse  known  as  the  first  book  of  Epistles.  Many  appear 
to  be  genuine  letters,  such  as  the  hearty  invitation  to  the 
congenial  younger  poet  Tibullus  to  come  and  be  beguiled 
of  his   melancholy   at  the  Sabine  farm.     All  are  witty. 


198  THE    AUGUSTAN   AGE 

wise,  easy,  and  mellow.  Here  Horace  is  at  his  best,  and 
sour  must  he  be  who  could  cavil  at  aught.  Though 
Horace  is  the  first  to  insist  that  this  is  not  poetry,  it  is 
really  often  more  poetical  than  the  most  labored  of  odes. 
The  philosophic,  even  the  moralizing  tone  grows  to  be 
prevalent,  but  there  is  no  strenuous  preaching.  A  toler- 
ant, often  a  merry  critic  of  life,  and  also  of  literature, 
Horace  always  remained.  Even  his  ennui  is  uttered  in 
phrases  of  pure  gold  : 

"This  one  hour,   that  a  god   has  accorded   to   you  in  his 

bounty, 
Take  with  a  grateful  hand,  nor  plan  next  year  to  be  happy. 
So  that  wherever  your  life  may  be  spent  you  will  say  you 

enjoy  it. 
For  if  anxieties  only  by  foresight  or  reason  are  banished, 
Not  by  a  spot  that  affords  some  outlook  wide  on  the  waters. 
Never  our  nature,  but  only  the  sky  do  we  change  as  we 

travel. 
Toilsome  idleness  wears  us  out.     On  wagon  or  shipboard 
Comfort   it   is   that  we  ci-ave.      Yet   that  which  you  seek 

is  within  you, 
Even  at  Ulubrse  : — if  you  but  lack  not  a  spirit  contented." 

The  last  of  these  Epistles  includes  a  naive  description 
of  Horace's  person,  and  gives  the  impression  that  he  would 
now  gladly  lay  the  pen  aside.  Though  he  had  dared  re- 
fuse the  invidious  or  irksome  honor  of  being  Augustus's 
private  secretary,  there  were  more  imperative  calls  that  he 
could  not  ignore.  The  celebration  of  the  great  Saecular 
epoch  in  17  B.C.,  and  other  courtly  occasions,  drew  the 
philosophic  moralist  back,  with  some  evident  reluctanc*^;, 
to  the  more  laborious  lyric  forms.  The  hymn  sung  by 
youths  and  maids  on  the  proud  anniversary  day  is  melodi- 
ous, graceful,  orthodox. 


HORACE  199 


ODES,    IV. 


With  the  addition  of  some  early  pieces,  also,  sufficient 

material  was  accumulated  for  a  fourth  book  of  odes,  issued 

at  Augustus's  desire  about  13  B.C.     It  does  not  increase, 

nor  detract  from,  Horace's  assured  fame.     The  poem  on 

Augustus's  soldierly  stepson  Drusus  is  per- 

es,  v.,  4.         iiaps  the  most  martial   and   Eoman   of   all 

Horatian  strains. 

EPISTLES,    II. 

The  second  book  of  ''Epistles"  contains  two  essays  only, 
both  chiefly  dealing,  in  rather  whimsical  and  desultory 
fashion,  with  literary  questions.  The  first  is  inscribed  to 
Augustus,  and  complains  that  the  oldest  Eoman  poetry 
only  is  popular.     The  idyllic    passage  on  the  origin  of 

Fescennine  comedy  has  been  cited  already. 

Horace  felt  that  Plautus  performed  his  mer- 
cenary tasks  carelessly  and  roughly,  that  Andronicus, 
Nffivius,  even  Ennius,  were  rude;  in  fact,  that  true  taste 
was  a  very  recent  acquisition  from  Hellas.  Even  among 
Greeks  he  considers  authorship  an  art  fit  only  for  a 
decadent  age.  He  declares  himself  unfitted  for  drama  or 
epic,  to  which  latter  task  Augustus  had  evidently  urged 
him.  His  chief  claim  for  literature  is  its  didactic  and 
patriotic  value.     There  are  flashes  of  deeper  feeling,  like  : 

"Childhood's   tender  and  stammering  voice  by  the  poet  is 

guided." 

A  still  clearer  allusion  to  such  poems  of  his  own  as  the 
''  Carmen  Saeculare"  may  be  heard  in  these  lines: 

"  Whence  would  innocent  youths,  or  maids  unconscious   of 
wedlock, 
Learn  their  prayer,  if  the  Muse  had  not  accorded  a  poet  ?  " 


200  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

The  second  epistle  is  somewhat  briefer,  but  exceeds  two 
hundred  verses.  The  key  is  more  distinctly  querulous. 
The  tone  of  advanced  age  would  be  absurd,  if  we  did  not 
know  that  Horace^'s  life  was  really  almost  spent. 

"  One  by  one  do  the  passing  years  wrest  from  us  our  pleasures, 
Jestuif?,  and  love,  the  delights  of  the  banquet,  and  games 

they  have  stolen, 
Poetry  too  they  clutch  at.  " 

The  city,  with  its  daylong,  nightlong  uproar,  is  described  in 
lurid  tints  : 

"  Yonder  a  mad  dog  runs,  here  tumbles  a  sow  in  her  wal- 
low." 

In  a  really  bitter  passage  Horace  alludes  to  the  public 
"authors^ readings.^'  He  has  to  hear  and  praise  the  weari- 
some verses  of  "  Callimachus  " — who  is  pretty  clearly  the 
uncongenial  and  assertive  Proj^ertius — while  he  himself 
in  turn  is  praised  and  dubbed  "  Alca^us." 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  we  should  consider  an  essay 
of  Horace,  actually  printed  by  some  editors  as  the  third 
epistle  of  the  second  book,  but  forced  into  undue  promi- 
nence, even  given  in  some  later  ages  a  sort  of  oracular 
authority,  as  the  Augustan  utterance,  *'De  Arte  Poetica^': 
On  the  Art  of  Poetry. 

This  too  claims  to  be  merely  a  letter,  in  476  colloquial 
hexameters,  addressed  to  a  pair  of  young  friends  ambitious 
of  poetic  fame.  In  length,  then,  it  is  slightly  less 
than  the  two  previous  epistles  combined.  The  tone  is 
somewhat  more  strenuous,  but  on  the  whole  colloquial, 
desultory,  still.  When  he  ventures  even  to  give  advice  on 
the  style  of  tragedy,  it  is  but  advice,  given  by  one  who 
himself  wisely  abstained,  on  the  popular  Roman  diversion 
of  recasting  in  Latin  the  outworn  myths  of  early  Hellas. 


HOEACE  201 

The  chief  virtue,  for  this  critic,  is  propriety,  good  taste, 
moderation,  the  avoidance  of  bold  contrasts.  In  fact,  these 
are  the  maxims  of  an  age  like  Pope's  and  Addison's, 
when  the  imagination  languishes,  and  elaboration,  form, 
style,  seem  more  weighty  than  subject-matter.  Most  fa- 
miliar of  all  is  the  warning  against  the  "purple  patch." 
It  would  have  persuaded  Shakesj)eare  to  cancel  Jacques's 
**  Seven  Ages  of  Man,"  or  Hamlet's  soliloquy.  Horace  de- 
tests startling  contrasts.  He  would  have  joined  Voltaire 
in  protesting  against  the  undignified  grave-diggers  who 
**mar  the  pathos  of  Ophelia's  funeral." 

As  always,  Horace's  discourse  is  full  of  shrewd  observa- 
tions, of  sound  common-sense  based  on  abundant  experi- 
ence of  life  and  letters.  From  time  to  time,  a  bold  and 
earnest  phrase  flashes  forth,  e.g.: 

"  The  master-pieces  of  Hellas, 
Still  with  unweary  hand  unroll,  by  night  or  by  daylight." 

But  in  the  next  verse  is  the  old  complaint,  that  Plautus  is 
too  popular. 

In  general,  this,  like  all  the  later  work,  is  well  worthy 
of  attentive,  even  repeated,  perusal.  Many  lines  and  phrases 
are  current  coin  among  the  cultivated.  But  it  is  no  Aristotle 
or  Aristarchos  who  speaks.  Even  their  right  to  speak 
with  authority  may  be  effectively  disputed  :  Horace  never 
makes  such  a  claim.  All  literary  criticism  records,  rather 
than  guides,  the  flight  of  the  truly  creative  imagination: 
but  Horace  essays  little  more  than  gossip  by  the  wayside. 
We  are  glad  to  note  that  even  his  theory  of  the  artist's  aim 
turns  mellower  again,  in  this  last  utterance  : 

"Either  to  give  enjoyment  or  profit  the  poets  are  wishful, 
Or  to  say  that  which  at  once  is  useful  in  life,  and  delightful." 

As  we  turn  away  from  the  two  most  popular  poets  of 
Rome,  perhaps  of  the  world,  we  may  repeat,  that  Horace 


5-'r 


202  THE   AUGUSTAN   AGE 

has  supplied  the  fit  expression  for  almost  every  common 
thought  of  earthly  men.  The  dreamer,  the  mystic,  the 
idealist,  of  any  age,  finds  no  company  more  congenial  than 
the  Sibyl's,  as  she  threads  the  vague  mazes  of  the  spirit 
world,  guiding  Virgil  to  that  far-off  vale  where  in  un- 
earthly yet  unfading  light  the  past  and  the  remotest 
future  meet,  and  are  to  the  eye  of  faith  revealed,  inter- 
preted, reconciled.  We  gladly  believe  that  these  two 
rarely  gifted  men  loved  each  other.  In  both  we  see  gleams 
of  the  old  Koman  freedom  and  manly  pride.  But  they, 
and  Livy,  are  the  last  of  their  generation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  best  student's  edition  of  Horace  is  Kiessling's  with  German 
notes.  For  lovers  of  literature  Professor  Shorey's  edition  of  the 
Odes  and  Epodes  is  indispensable,  for  the  manifold  echoes  of  Horatian 
phrases,  gathered  from  all  later  authors  down  to  our  day. 

Among  English  translators  Sir  Tlieodore  Martin  is  generally  reck- 
oned the  happiest,  though  Conington's  freer  renderings  of  the  Satires 
and  Epistles  are  quite  as  readable.  Least  successful  of  the  numberless 
versions  are  those  which  would  attempt  in  Englisli  the  alcaics,  sapphics, 
and  yet  more  hopeless  combinations  barely  attained,  by  Horace's  own 
painful  effort,  in  a  language  certainly  more  melodious,  better  quanti- 
fied, more  flexible  than  our  Saxon  speech.  The  lighter  tones  of  Horace 
are  sometimes  best  caught  by  the  audacious  and  irreverent  genius  of 
Eugene  Field.  In  truth,  some  of  his  Echoes  almost  better  the  originals. 
Mr.  Gladstone  found  leisure  to  enter  this  domain  also. 

Sellar,  Martin,  Mackail,  Ribbeck,  and  numberless  others,  have  made 
sympathetic  studies  of  Horace's  life  and  genius.  Professor  Tyrrell  has 
set  forth  some  of  his  shortcomings,  perhaps  more  boldly  than  any  other 
recent  critic.  Miss  Preston  has  a  delightful  sketch  in  the  Warner  Li- 
brary, and  also  an  essay  in  an  old  Atlantic^  on  a  visit  to  the  Sabine 
farnx, 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

OVID 

43   B.C.-18    A.D. 

Between  Virgil  and  Ovid  there  is  a  moral  gulf.  It  is 
not,    of  course,  that   Rome,  or   the  world,  has  suddenly 

BC-18AD  grown  shamelessly  vicious.  Virgil  was  a 
dreamer,  almost  out  of  touch  with  the  coarser 
side  of  realities.  We  have  heard  his  note  of  extravagant 
though  doubtless  sincere  prophecy,  in  the  Fourth  Bucolic 
and  the  Sixth  ^neid.  From  clear-sighted  Livy  comes  the 
prompt  answering  cry  of  disgust  and  despair.  Even  he 
declares  that  the  restoration  of  temples  and  religious  rites 
was  a  very  prominent  feature  of  the  emperor's  policy.  Yet 
the  deification  of  Octavian  himself  must  always  have  been, 
in  aristocratic  and  enlightened  circles,  a  hollow  absurdity. 
A  yet  more  hopeless  task  was  the  revival  of  old-fashioned 
morality,  and  especially  of  the  family  ties,  by  a  cold-hearted 
imperial  libertine  who  had  divorced  his  own  wife  when 
his  only  child  Julia  was  a  few  days  old,  and  tore  Livia  from 
her  reluctant  husband  three  months  before  Drusus's  birth. 
Maecenas's  peace  of  mind  as  a  married  man  was  disturbed 
by  Augustus  himself.  Neither  Virgil  nor  Horace  appears 
ever  to  have  thought  of  marriage. 

Among  the  old  aristocracy,  generally,  compulsory  in- 
action in  politics,  ever-growing  wealth,  and  Oriental  lux- 
ury, wrought  their  natural  results.  The  princess  Julia, 
though  austerely  educated,  proved  the  most  dissolute  and 
shameless  woman  of  her  day.  Under  her  leadership  Rome 
plunged  into  every  form  of  brutalizing  vice.     If  we  find  it 

203 


204  THE  AUGUSTAN   AGE 

hard,  as  well  we  may,  to  listen  to  the  baseless  optimism  of 
Horace,  who  in  his  latest  flight  of  odes  assures  Augustus 
that  vice  is  now  unknown  and  crime  always  meets  prompt 
vengeance,  yet  it  is  only  fair  to  remember,  that  Julia,  at 
least,  really  concealed  her  character  from  her  father  down 
to  the  year  3  B.C.  Unless,  indeed,  his  sudden  awakening, 
his  decree  for  her  banishment  to  a  lonely  isle,  his  life-long 
resentment,  his  refusal  even  to  admit  her  ashes  into  his  own 
mausoleum,  may  require  for  their  explanation  the  stronger 
hypothesis  that  she  had  been  entangled  in  one  of  the  plots 
against  the  emperor's  life. 

It  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  manly  dignity  and  womanly 
modesty  then,  or  ever,  vanished  from  the  world.  In  this 
very  century  the  voice  of  Paul  rings  through  the  Greek 
cities.  There  is  a  growing  restlessness  in  the  Germanic 
lands. 

"  Out  of  the  shadow  of  night 
The  world  rolls  into  light." 

It  is  merely  one  corrupt  metropolis  that  is  tottering.  But 
in  imperial  Latin  literature  little  is  seen  or  heard  of  save 
Rome  itself.  So  it  is  not  strange  if  the  path  leads  steadily 
downward,  and  the  light  grows  ever  dimmer. 

The  best  age  of  the  Latin  people  was  long  since  de- 
parted. Even  in  the  realm  of  art,  technique  perfects  itself 
but  ideals  perish.  Already  the  last  poet  whom  we  really 
desire  to  portray  in  full  as  he  actually  was,  whom  we  wish 
our  own  youth  to  know  entire,  has  passed  by.  Ovid,  in 
many  respects  more  skilful  than  any  predecessor,  is  the 
eager  laureate  of  Julia's  court.  His  genius,  and  his  im- 
mense influence  ever  since,  must  be  duly  acknowledged. 
Yet  from  this  time  on,  there  is  upon  nearly  every  literary 
career  a  dark  shadow,  a  side  of  which  we  shall  say  as  little 
as  we  honestly  may.  These  poets  we  read  in  expurgated 
editions,  or  in  mere  extracts,  for  they  love  to   dwell  on 


OVID  205 

thoughts  and  subjects  which  all  noble-minded  folk  avoid 
or  veil  in  reticence. 

Above  all,  imperial  Eome  degrades  the  name  of  Love  to 
the  level  of  mere  animal  passion.  For  this  the  scholar, 
at  least,  can  never  claim  even  the  poor  excuse,  his  igno- 
rance of  nobler  conceptions.  Though  no  age  of  chivalry 
had  yet  taught  the  Mediterranean  world  to  idealize  and 
deify  woman,  yet  Antigone,  Alkestis,  and  their  peers, 
thronged  the  stage  of  heroic  drama.  The  Iliad,  above  all, 
was  never  forgotten  :  indeed  one  of  the  best  interpreta- 
Horace,  Epist.,  ^^o^s  of  its  ethical  meaning  is  offered  by 
'••  '•  Horace  :  and  in  all  that  procession  of  stately 

figures  not  one  shines  clearer  than  Hector  and  Andromache 
with  their  baby  boy.  No  more  perfect  picture  of  pure 
love  as  the  incentive  to  a  generous  heroic  life  has  ever  yet 
been  drawn.  Few  men  of  any  age  have  known  their 
Homer  better  than  did  Ovid. 

Publius  Ovidius  Naso  was  born  at  Sulnifi^rom  parents 
of  knightly  rank,  and  naturally  was  sent  to  the  schools  of 
rhetoric.  He  travelled  early,  and  with  profit,  in  Greece, 
Asia,  and  Sicily.  Utterance  in  verse  was  second  nature  to 
him  from  boyhood.  His  career  in  public  office  was  cut 
short  by  his  success  as  a  poet.  Popularity  he  seems  to 
have  won  promptly.  After  two  brief  marital  experiences, 
both  ended  by  divorce,  he  lived  long  happily  with  a  third 
wife.  We  need  not,  any  more  in  his  case  than  in  Horace's, 
mterpret  every  poetical  love-affair  as  an  actual  experience  : 
but  he  shows  only  too  perfect  acquaintance  with  life's  baser 
sides. 

Of  the  three  well-defined  periods  in  Ovid's  career,  the  .  \ 

first  is  almost  wholly  taken  uj)  with  erotic  verse.      It  re-     -    '    ,/ 
veals  the  artificial,  unlyrical  spirit  of  the  time,  that  such 
a  master  of  rhythm  feels  himself  limited  by  his  themes  to 
the  elegiac  couplet,  since  he  will  not  essay  an  epic  subject 


206  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

in  pure  hexamotor.  This  recalls  the  tyranny  of  English 
rhymed  pentameter  from  Dryden  to  Johnson. 

AMORES 

The  forty-eight  poems  thus  entitled  are  nearly  all  true 
to  the  name.  In  its  present  form  the  collection  appeared 
about  13  B.C.  The  poet  congratulates  the  reader  on  having 
but  three  books  in  this  edition,  though  in  earlier  youth  he 
had  published  five.  Certainly  nothing  has  been  suppressed 
for  the  sake  of  modest  reticence.  Many  are  purely  imag- 
inative studies.  It  need  not  be  supposed,  for  instance,  that 
Ovid  had  really  beaten  a  lady,  and  pulled 

Amores,  I.,  7.  .  .      .  tt-    i  -i 

out  her  hair.  Violence  and  remorse  are 
simply  among  the  stock  themes  to  be  treated.  Here  his 
neatest  classical  allusion  is  to  Diomedes,  wounding  Aphro- 
dite in  Homeric  battle  : 

"He  is  the  first  that  a  goddess  has  smitten  :  and  I  am  the 
other  ! " 

For  some  of  the  coarsest  pieces  in  the  collection  we  chance 
to  have  lighter  Greek  originals. 

Even  his  famous  Corinna  is  hardly  a  real  person.  The 
elegy  on  her  dead  parrot  is  harmlessly  playful,  but  lacks 
the  fire  and_  tenderness  of  Catullus's  verses  on  Lesbia's 
sparrow.  Indeed,  there  is  a  striking  want  of  earnest 
feeTmg  in  all  these  twelve  hundred  rather  monotonous 
couplets. 

Once,  however,  even  here,  the  measure  finds  noble  use-, 

when  young  Tibullus,  himself  a  poet  of  passion,  is  mourned 

for  in  lofty  and  scholarly  yet  sincere  verses, 

Amores,  III.,  9.       ^    .,   .  ,-,    ^    ,,  .      .       ., 

Ovid  IS  even  aware  that  this  is  the  proper 
function  of  the  elegiac  rhythm. 

"  If  once  Memnon  a  mother  lamented,  a  mother  Achilles, 
If  men's  piteous  fates  trouble  the  goddesses'  hearts, 


OVID  207 

Rend  thine  innocent  locks,  oh  Elegy,  rend  them  in  sorrow. 
Now  this  name  shall  abide,  only  too  truly,  for  thee  !  " 

This  is  probably  the  only  piece  in  the  entire  collection 
of  real  and  lasting  interest.  A  very  lively  and  harmless 
glimpse  at  the  public  entertainments,  and  the  sparkling, 
shallow  wit  of  the  time  is  offered  in  the  '*  Flirtation  at  the 
CircnSi"  which  could  be  translated  truthfully  without 
grave  offence. 

DE    AKTE    AMATORIA,    ETC. 

Much  later,  in  three  books  of  nearly  eight  hundred  verses 
each,  Ovid  treated,  in  mock-didactic  fashion,  the  Art  of 
Love.  The  last  of  these  three  rolls  evenessays  to  teach  the 
other  sex  how  to  charm.  There  is  naturally  no  lack  of 
Greek  mythological  illustration,  easily  dragged  down  to 
this  level,  and  a  favorite  founders'  legend  of  Rome  is 
also  freely  handled.  Cleverness,  a  keen  eye  for  each 
human  frailty,  is  everywhere  to  be  noted,  as  when  the  Sa- 
bine maids,  we  are  told, 

"  Come  to  look  on  at  the  games, — and  come,  no  less,  to  be 
looked  at. " 

But  the  science  he  teaches  is  simply  that  of  making  love  to 
your  friend's,  wife  successfully  and  without  detection.  He 
denies,  in  his  later  days,  that  he  had  himself  ever  disturbed 
family  happiness.  So  much  the  completer  is  the  degrada- 
tion of  his  art.  Yet  even  so  grave  a  critic  as  Professor 
Sellar  is  disposed  to  regard  this  as  Ovid's  masterpiece,  and 
compares  it,  not  unfitly,  to  Don  Juan.  The  author  has 
"  come  to  forty  year  "  no  sager  than  of  old. 

The  "  Remedia  Amoris"  may  be  considered  a  mere  sup- 
plement, making  a  long  fourth  book.  The  "  Medicamina 
Faciei  Fcemineae,"  on  the  care  of  the  feminine  complexion, 
is  a  fragment  of  exactly  a  hundred  lines.     This  may  be  the 


208  THE  AUGUSTAN   AGE 

first  of  the  imitations  of  Ovid,  which  were  frequent  down 
to  modern  times. 

As  to  the  poems  thi;s  far  discussed,  the  most  surprising 
quality  is  their  cheerfulness.  Empty,  ignoble,  selfish,  as 
is  the  social  life  therein  depicted,  it  has  not  apparently  lost 
its  charm.  The  consciousness  of  sin  seems  as  entirely  ab- 
sent as  in  a  comedy  of  Congreve.  There  is  little  trace 
even  of  the  erimii  which  Horace  cannot  conceal.  Perhaps 
this  very  complacency  has  always  made  Ovid's  immoral 
works  peculiarly  popular — and  harmful. 

HEROIDES 

The  series  of  imaginary  letters  from  love-lorn  heroines 
has_tliisjiappy  distinction,  that  we  are  safely  escaped  from 
Augustan  realism  into  the  realm  of  remoter  artistic  imagi- 
nation. Indeed,  here  extreme  coarseness  is  the  exception. 
The  sustained  study  of  passionate  feeling,  and  its  graceful 
expression,  must  be  pronounced  well  worthy  of  attention 
from  the  mature  and  thoughtful. 

Ovid  shows  thorough  familiarity,  already,  with  the  whole 
world  of  early  myth,  from  Homer  down.  Indeed,  although 
he  naturally  finds  Andromache  a  less  congenial  character, 
yet  Briseis,  Helen,  even  the  prudent  Penelope,  are  included. 
(Enone,  the  fickle  prince's  earlier  flame,  loved  before  he 
knew  himself  a  king's  son,  also  indites  an  epistle  to  Paris. 
That  writing  was  unknown  in  the  Homeric  age  is,  no 
doubt,  too  pedantic  a  criticism. 

In  such  tales  as  that  of  Hero  and  Leander,  Ovid's  unique 
powers  in  narrative  and  graphic  description  stand  fully  re- 
vealed. InHyperniestra^  who  of  Danaos's  fifty  daughters 
alone  refuses  to  slay  her  bridegroom,  we  have,  even,  noble 
traits  and  thoughts.  Indeed  Ovid,  whose  nature  is  always 
kindly,  really  seems  to  show  in  some  of  these  studies  tender- 
ness, and  deep  insight  into  the  feminine  heart.  Oftener, 
however,  we  listen  to  a  mere  ingenious   rhetorician  :    or 


OVID  209 

again,  while  Helen  toys  with  Paris's  advances,  we  realize 
that  Ovid,  under  these  classic  names,  paints  exactly  the 
conditions  about  him  in  Rome.  ^/ 

In  Dido's  letter  to  -^neas  our  poet  brings  himseU^into 
close  and  dangerous  rivalry  with  the  Fourth  ^n^id,  yet 
deserves  a  careful  hearing.  The  epistle  of  Medea  may  re- 
mind us,  again,  that  Ovid  had  already  in  early  youth  com- 
pleted a  Latin  tragedy  on  this  familiar  subject.  It  is  often 
referred  to  as  a  masterpiece,  though  perhaps  never  played, 
the  Roman  stage  having  now  reached  its  lowest  degradation 
in  the  Pantomime,  a  form  of  silent  acting,  sometimes  ac- 
companied by  recitation  or  song  from  behind  the  scenes. 
_Two  colorless  lines  of  this  tragedy  alone  survive.  The  letter 
of  MedeaTTo  Jason  may  utilize  the  same  motives  as  did  the 
play.  It  covers  exactly  the  same  ground  as  the  opening 
of  Euripides's  tragedy,  reminding  Jason  of  past  favors  and 
present  wrongs,  and  foreshadowing  the  terrible  revenge 
which  Medea  is  to  visit  on  his  young  Greek  wife  and  her 
own  children  by  him. 

The  letter  of  Sappho  to  her  lover  Phaon  hardly  comes 
under  the  title,  ''Heroides,''  and  is  probably  not  to  be 
charged  to  Ovid.  Indeed,  many  of  these  epistles,  especially 
the  responses,  are  believed  to  be  by  another  hand.  The 
entire  collection  is  swelled  to  nearly  four  thousand  lines. 
The  very  mass  is  not  without  significance.  This  first 
section,  thus  far  described,  of  Ovid's  facile  product  is  nearly 
equal  to  the  whole  -^neid  in  length. 

But  it  is  time  to  turn  to  the  second  and  most  valuable 
division  of  his  life-work.  The  Heroides  have  already  fore- 
shadowed the  Metamorphoses. 

METAMOKPHOSES 

It  is  a  strange  caprice  of  fortune  that  makes  the  frivolous 
versifier  of  the  Amores  a  chief,  perhaps  thejchief  authority 
for  Hftljftrnfl  jn vthi'iu.  We  cannot  in  most  caseseven'name 


210  THE  AUGUSTAN   AGE 

with  confidence  his  Greek  originals,  though  Parthenios,  al- 
ready mentioned  as  a  member  of  Catullns's  group,  had  also 
composed  *' Metamorphoseis."  We  cannot  suppose  that 
Ovid  had  the  least  trace  of  living  faith  in  the  marvels  he 
describes.  These  transformations  have  their  root  chiefly  in 
the  notion  of  metempsychosis,  involving  of  course  a  belief, 
such  as  Ovid  hardly  pretended  to  hold,  in  the  continued 
existence  of  the  soul.  Even  the  account  of  the  divine  be- 
ings, and  of  their  abodes  along  the  Milky  Way,  is  imagina- 
tive, vivid,  but  by  no  means  reverent.  Indeed,  Ovid's  gods 
behave  and  talk  decidedly  worse  than  Homer's,  who  in  turn 
are  notably  inferior  in  ethical  quality  to  the  human  charac- 
ters of  the  epics.  Even  Homer  seems  in  this  matter  cynical 
rather  than  naive.  Certainly  when  an  Augustan  poet 
frankly  draws  the  homes,  the  intrigues,  the  characters  of 
the  gods  on  contemporary  Roman  models,  the  audacity  and 
irreverence  are  unquestionable.  It  is  evident,  that  the  clev- 
erest of  Latin  versifiers  and  story-tellers  simply  hit  upon 
this  large  and,  on  the  whole,  congenial  theme,  and  con- 
centrated upon  it  unexpected  energy,  sufficient  art  and 
learning,  but  no  serious  belief  or  purpose. 

Beginning  with  the  moulding  of  the  world  from  Chaos 
into  Cosmos,  and  ending  with  the  change  of  Julius  Caesar's 
human  nature  into  a  constellation,  there  were  few  marvels 
of  myth  or  authentic  history  which  Ovid's  ingenuity  could 
not  bring  within  his  rubric.  His  own  interest,  his  delight 
in  the  task,  never  seems  to  flag.  Indeed,  this  freshness, 
even  happiness,  of  Ovid  often  disarms  our  criticism.  His 
inventive  genius,  the  variety  of  his  incidents  and  scenery, 
is  unending.  There  is  probably  no  writer  who  by  deft, 
close-woven  detail  in  description  could  have  made  so  cred- 
ible, or  at  least  conceivable,  and  even  pathetic,  an  incident 
netamorphoses,  ^J^c  the  transformation  of  Dryope  into  a  tree. 
•x-.  334-94-  The  same  marvel  recurs  several  times  in  other 
fables,  yet  there  is  no  repetition  of  the  touches.     Of  more 


OVID  211 

fhan  two  hundred  myths,  each  set  forth  in  graphic  com- 
pleteness, every  one  is  clearly  told,  and  more  or  less  inter- 
esting in  itself. 

The  capital  weakness  of  the  work,  however,  hasjast  been 
indicated.  It  has  no  inner  unity.  Many  myths  are  indeed 
cleverly  interlinked,  sometimes  with  slight  alterations  to 
that  very  end.  Often  a  nominal  connection  is  devised,  as, 
when  Arachne  vies  with  Pallas  in  the  weaving  of  tapestry, 
the  pictures  therein  Avrought  and  described  are  episodic 
tales  in  themselves.  Often,  however,  we  have  simply  a 
series  of  narratives  told  in  turn  on  some  special  occasion, 
as  the  Arabic  stories  are  centred  merely  in  the  fate  of 
Scheherazade.  In  truth,  the  very  ingenuity  with  which 
Ovid  forbids  his  own  thread  ever  to  break  off  grows  in  it- 
self wearisome,  andwealways  prefer  to  read  him  piecemeal. 

That  the  poet  creates  a  new  world,  or  reshapes  for  us 
oar  familiar  universe,  cannot  be  truly  said  of  Ovid,  as  it 
was  of  Lucretius,  from  whose  larger  and  really  far  more 
reverent  plan  the  Metamorphoses  borrow  much,  in  their 
most  ambitious  passages.  At  best,  we  lie  but  for  a  dreamy 
hour  under  the  magician's  spell,  tracing  the  graceful  out- 
lined shapes,  rich  in  color,  but  not  after  all  truly  alive, 
that  throng  the  panels  upon  the  unsubstantial  Avails  and 
low  ceiling  of  his  summer  palace.  The  arabesques  and  in- 
terlinking curves  are  often  ingenious  but  never  essential, 
the  pictures  are  seldom  if  ever  wholly  his  creation,  not 
rarely  they  remind  us  dangerously  of  nobler  originals  :  for 
even  Euripides  the  realist  is  far  loftier,  homely  Hesiod 
more  sincere.  At  times,  too,  our  eyes  still  captive  in  the 
meshes  of  the  endlessly  interwoven  pattern,  we  long  for  the 
soaring  sky,  for  the  free  strong  winds  of  Nature  herself. 

So  Ovid's  confident  closing  prophecy  is  indeed  fulfilled, 
and  more  :  for  no  longer 

"The  might  of  Rome  o'erawes  the  subject  earth," 
while  he  himself  shall  yet 


212  THE  AUGUSTAN   AGE 

"  Survive  familiar  on  the  lips  of  men:  " 
but  even  as  the  author  of  these  twelve  thousand  flowins: 
hexameters  he  stands  upon  no  pedestal  of  honor,  nor  is  he 
enshrined  in  our  loving  thoughts  as  is  Catullus  or  Sappho. 
We  take  from  his  hand  many  a  gift,  almost  always  regret- 
ting that  it  is  passed  on  to  us  by  him  alone. 

Yet  the  Phaethon  episode  could  hardly  have  had,  else- 
where, a  more  splendid  setting,  a  more  absorbing  interest, 
than  it  hero  receives.  Sometimes,  above  all  in  Baucis  and 
Philemon,  the  reckless  humor,  the  unwearying  ingenuity 
of  Ovid  are  at  their  best,  while  the  tale  itself  cannot  fail  to 
supply  the  pathetic  interest,  the  nobler  meaning,  which  he 
certainly  never  added.  In  the  case  of  Pyramusaud  Tliisbe 
the  greatest  of  masters  in  comedy  as  in  tragedy  has  so  con- 
vulsed us  with  mirth  that  the  Latin  rendering  seems,  by 
contrast,  sadly  and  soberly  true.  Ovid  was  doubtless  here 
Shakespeare's  informant. 

FASTI 

Of  the  remaining  works  the  account  must  be  much 
briefer.  The  Fasti  is  a  subject  to  which  not  all  Ovid's 
ingenuity  could  give  even  the  shadow  of  unity.  It  is  a 
versified  calendar,  made  with  rather  inadequate  astro- 
nomical learning.  Each  historic  anniversary  is  duly  cele- 
brated. The  symbolic  ritual  of  every  feast  is  explained  as 
well  as  may  be  by  traditional  Tegencl  or  inventive  myth. 
In  general  we  have  a  year-book  for  loyal  and  pious  llo- 
mans. 

This  work  ranks  almost  with  Livy's  or  Varro's  as  a 
quarry  of  archaologic  lore,  but  only  single  episodes  can 
claim  a  wider  human  interest.  Only  six  books  of  the 
twelve  survive,  the  first  one  in  a  revised  form  evidently 
undertaken  in  exile. 

For  into  this  self-satisfied,  prosperous  life  came,  after 
Ovid's  fiftieth  year,  the  dignity  of  a  real,   a  great  calam- 


OVID  213 

ity.  By  the  emperor's  decree  he  was  suddenly  banished  to 
the  town  of  Tomi,  on  the  cold  and  desolate  northern 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  One  cause  for  this  punishment 
was  the  ''  De  Arte  Amatoria/'  though  published  nine  years  7  ^ 
before, — just  about  the  time  of  Julia's  banishment.  The 
other  reason,  also  indicated  by  Ovid  himself,  was  his  guilty 
knowledge  of  some  great  court  scandal.  As  the  younger 
Julia,  Augustus's  granddaughter,  had  followed  in  her 
mother's  wayward  steps,  and  in  this  very  year  also  went 
perforce  into  life-long  seclusion,  it  seems  natural  to  sur- 
mise that  the  two  departures  were  in  some  way  connected. 
The  extravagant  notion  that  Ovid  was  himself  a  lover  of 
either  Julia,  and  even  celebrated  her  imperial  charms 
under  the  veil  of  "  Corinna,"  is  long  since  abandoned. 

From  the  forlorn  exile  came,  at  least,  utterances  of  sin- 
cere and  deep  feeling  in  the  elegies  known  as  "  Tristia,'^ 
and  some  vivid  descriptions  of'the  land  of  ice  and  forests  m 
the  Epistnlasex  ^^Ponto,"  still  in  the  same  familiar  couplet. 
Even  bitter  words  against  enemies  in  Rome  now  escape  Jh/  t 
his  pen.  Ovid's  property  was  not  confiscated ;  he  was 
not  in  actual  confinement :  but  neither  Augustus  himself 
nor  the  colder-hearted  Tiberius  ever  recalled  the  homesick 
exile,  who  died  at  Tomi,  when  about  sixty  years  old. 

One  is  inclined,  on  turning  away  from  this  forlorn  Cri- 
mean grave,  to  utter  a  word  of  gentler  judgment.  Ovid 
was  never  self-conscious,  never  jealous,  never  cruel.  He 
was  a  loyal  devotee  of  his  art,  and  grudged  no  study,  no 
pains,  in  perfecting  himself.  In  his  favorite.,^,u£let  all 
who  have  followed  him  are  but  inferior  imitators  of  his 
rhythm.  To  his  encyclopaedic  knowledge  and  facile  ^en 
we  are  indebted  for  scores  of  our  favorite  Greek  tales.  If 
he  never  raised  his  myth  to  a  loftier  meaning,  he  at  least 
gives  it  many  a  deft  minor  touch  in  the  telling.  While  as 
an  artist  he  deserves,  on  the  whole,  our  gratitude,  his  lack 
of  moral  sense  is  almost  common  to  his  entire  generation. 


214  THE   AUGUSTAN    AGE 

In  the  painters  and  sculptors  of  tlie  Renaissance,  in 
poets  so  diverse  as  Dante,  Milton,  William  Morris,  Tenny- 
son, Browning,  and  countless  others,  the  influence  of  Ovid 
can  be  unmistakably  traced. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  chief  source  for  the  story  of  Ovid's  life  is  Ids  autobiographical 
poem,  Tristia,  iy„  10,  1-132. 

The  Metamorphoses  must  be  read  diligently  in  English,  if  not  in 
Latin.  Indeed,  it  may  yet  be  accepted  as  the  best  basis  for  connected 
literary  study  of  Greek  mythology  itself.  The  translation  in  blank 
verse  by  Henry  King  is  quite  faithful,  and  not  ungraceful,  though 
hardly  the  work  of  a  poet.  William  Morris  might  well  have  essayedthis 
task  rather  than  the  iEneid.  The  Bohn  volumes  have  many  useful 
references  to  other  classical  authors. 

School  readers  use  chiefly  episodes  from  the  Metamorphoses,  with 
some  bits  of  tlie  Fasti  and  Tristia,  perliaps  from  the  Heroides  one  or 
two  such  letters  as  Penelope's.  Scholars  need  no  information  as  to 
such  special  editions  as  the  Metamorphoses  by  Zingerle,  Fasti  by 
Peter  or  Paley,  Tristia  by  Owen,  etc.  Ribbeck  in  his  "  Romische 
Dichtung"  gives  a  very  detailed  and  sympathetic  study  of  all  Ovid's 
works. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  ELEGIAC   POETS 

The  oldest  metre  of  the  classical  poets,  the  hexameter, 
never  lost  its  position  of  honor.  Especially,  e^iic,  in  Latin 
as  in  Greek,  as  we  shall  see,  long  upheld  the  form  brought 
over  by  Ennius  from  Homer.  The  first  Greek  stanza  was 
a  couplet,  produced  by  shortening  every  second  verse  of 
the  dactylic  line,  the  third  and  sixth  foot  being  reduced  to 
a  single  syllable  each.  The  general  effect  thus  attained 
is  a  sort  of  dying  fall,  contrasting  sharply  with  the  exultant 
bound  of  the  hexameter. 

The  most  famous  early  Greek  elegiast  is  Mimnermos, 
and  his  is  also  the  first  Hellenic  utterance  of  unmanly 
repining  and  ignoble  love-longing.  His  exquisite  music, 
skilfully  revived  in  the  Alexandrian  age,  four  or  five  cen- 
turies later,  was  also  echoed  cleverly  in  Latin  by  Catullus, 
who  understood  its  peculiar  fitness  for  a 
upra,  p.  120.      (jjj,gg      jjg  wisely  puts  nearly  all  his  most 

forceful  utterances  of  hatred  or  love  rather  into  hendeca- 

syllables  and  iambics.      But  Horace's  polished  Sapphics, 

Alcaics,  etc.,  seem  to  have  discouraged  his  successors,  and 

the  lighter  lyrical   measures  are   hardly  heard  again   in 

classical  Latin.     It  has  been  mentioned  that 

upra,  p.  194        Qyi(j  felt  himself  limited  to  jnire  hexameter 

upra,  p.  205       ^^  ^j^^  elegiac  couplet,  with  a  distinct  sense  of 

greater  dignity  and  seriousness  m  the  former. 

Catullus  as  well  as  Ovid,  then,  must  be  included,  and 
very  prominent,  in  any  complete  discussion  of  Eoman  elegy. 
There  is  a  notable  group,  however,  of  Augustan  poets  who 

215  — '  ' 


216  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

are  so  liimted  to  this  measure — as  well  as  to  the  utterance 
oT sensual  love, — that  they  are  especially  regarded  as  the 
eTegjiHirjeiiifiers.  One  or  another  of  these  short  careers 
may  appeal  with  unique  force  even  to  the  sympatliy  of  a 
modern  man  or  woman,  but  all  are  clearly  minor  poets, 
judged  by  their  limited  influence  on  the  literature  and 
thought  of  later  peoples.  The  measure  is  a  highly  artificial 
one,  shutting  out  many  Latin  words,  requiring  often  an 
unnatural  order,  and  always  struggling  against  the  ordi- 
nary prose  cadences.  Truly  popular  such  verse  could  never 
be.  The  literary  forms  are  diverging  more  and  more  from 
the  speech  of  the  people.     ■— 

From  Catullns's  time,  and  no  doubt  much  earlier,  the 
writing  of  verse,  especially  erotic  verse,  was  a  very  gen- 
eral accomplishment  of  the  educated  :  that  poetry  was  a 
living  force  in  the  national  life  is  not  so  clearly  shown. 
Catullus  in  his  own  poems  mentions  many  well-beloved 
versifiers,  of  both  sexes.  Men  like  Varro,  Cicero,  Julius 
Csesar,  Augustus,  Maecenas,  Pollio,  so  busy  and  otherwise 
so  diverse,  shared  in  this  indulgence,  from  which,  in  truth, 
few  men  of  cultivation  and  sentiment  have  ever  held 
wholly  aloof. 

The  especial  group  already  referred  to  is  indicated  in  a 
passage  of  the  Tristia  as  Callus,  Tibullus,  Propertiu^, — 
Tristia,  iv.,  lo,      ^ud  Ovid  h  i  iiistl  f.     This   number   we   shall 

53-54.  somewhat  incicnsi'.     We  have  already  met 

the  low-born  soldier  Ga^Hus,  tlie  lover  of  "  LycoriS;"  The 
latter  was  an  actress — a  mimn, — known  on  the  stage  as 
"  Cytheris."  She  had  been  attached  to  at  least  two  famous 
men,  Brutus  and  Antony.  With  the  latter  she  had  even 
shared  an  open  triumphal  progress  tlirough  Italy  under 
the  more  aristocratic  name  "  Volumnia."  We  have  heard 
in  the  Tenth  Eclogue  Callus's  complaint  of  her  fickleness. 
He  devoted  his  four  books  of  elegies  chiefly  to  her.  Be- 


THE   ELEGIAC   POETS  217 

sides  original  poems  he  translated  Euphorion,  the  most 
learned,  and  pedantic  in  mythic  lore,  of  the  Alexandrian 
school.     These  diversions  all  belong  to  his  early  youth. 

Gallns  won  Augustus's  favor  by  bravery  in  the  civil 
wars,  and  was  made  prefect  of  Egypt  after  Antony's  death. 
By  erecting  statues  of  himself,  inscribing  his  own  exploits 
on  the  pyramids,  and  other  acts  of  foolish  vanity,  he  fell, 
like  Murena,  and  in  disgrace  took  his  own  life.  Perhaps 
Augustus  suppressed  Gallus's  poems,  as  well  as  Virgil's 
latest  verses  in  his  friend's  honor.  Certainly  only  07ie  line 
has  been  preserved,  and  judicious  Quintilian  grants  him 
but  a  single  word  of  dispraise,  ''harsher "  (or,  more  diffi- 
cult :  diirior).  If  he  means,  literally,  as  he  appears  to  do, 
harsher  than  Propertius,  it  may  help  reconcile  ns  to  our 
loss. 

PROPERTIUS 
46(?)-16(?)  B.C. 

This  poet  was  born  in  XJmbria,  at  or  near  Assisi,  St. 
Francis's  town.  Though  impoverished  by  the  last  civil 
wars  in  Italy,  his  family  were  able  to  educate  him  for  the 
law.  His  life  seems  to  have  been  spent  almost  wholly  in 
Rome.  He  was  still  almost  a  boy  when  he  fell  under  the 
influence  of  "  Cynthia."  Her  social  position  was  no  better 
than  Lycoris's,  though  she  had  noble  Roman  ancestry, 
education,  poetic  power,  and  wealth,  or  at  least  luxury 
through  her  lovers' gifts.  She  was  much  older  in  every 
sense  than  Propertius,  to  whom  she  made  the  first  ad- 
vances. He  claims  to  have  been  her  faithful  slave  for  five 
years.  As  to  the  existence  and  great  prominence  of  such 
women  in  Roman  social  life  there  is  no  question.  In  each 
case  we  may  treat  the  poet's  statements  as  literally  true,  as 
pure  fiction,  or  as  a  free  composite  picture  made  up  from 
various  originals. 


218  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

That  Cynthia  appears  as  a  single  woman,  as  a  mistress, 
or  again  as  a  matron,  is  a  minor  detail.  We  are  dealing 
with  a  time  when  all  such  relations  were  but  a  temporary 
convenience,  and  the  elemental  moral  law  itself  a  half- 
forgotten  convention,  like  formal  piety. 

Propertius's  first  book  of  elegies  was  wholly  devoted  to 
Cynthia.  Published  very  early,  it  won  the  friendship  of 
Maecenas,  who  advised  him  to  devote  his  gift  rather  to 
Augustus's  praise  and  to  patriotic  themes.  But  he  declares 
that  Cynthia  has  made  him  a  poet,  that  she  was  sung  in 
his  first  verses  and  shall  be  in  his  last. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  ninety-one  pieces  are  all  in 
elegiac  couplets,  and  sixty  are  dedicated  to  Cynthia. 
These  treat  all  the  phases  of  a  lawless  passion.  Though 
much  in  the  method  of  erotic  poetry  is  traditional,  Cynthia 
convinces  us  of  her  own  reality,  as  Ovid's  Corinna  never 
does.  Heir  unfaithfulness,  and  their  quarrels,  cause  him 
to  utter  the  ugliest  truths  as  to  her  real  character. 

The  ignoble  and  rather  monotonous  subject  is  not  the 
only  fault  of  these  verses.  Propertius's  mythology  is 
recondite,  his  style  itself  is  labored  and  obscure,  his  vanity 
is  boundless.  He  is  not  a  very  lovable  chiiructer.  let  a 
truly  Roman  energy  and  vigor,  at  times  a  manful  rebellion 
against  the  chains  that  hind  him,  above  all  a  truly  poetical 
and  original  power,  have  won  him  in  our  own  time  a  small 
but  enthusiastic  circle  of  admirers. 

Though  Ovid  was  the  confidant  of  his  early  passion,  and 
Virgil  the  object  of  his  adoring  admiration,  even  Majce- 
nas's  friendship  does  not  seem  to  have  brought  Propertius 
into  pleasant  personal  relations  with  Horace.  Neither 
mentions  the  other,  and  it  is  quite  evident  that  under  the 
name  of  "  Callimachus  "  the  younger  poet  is  mockingly 
Epist.,u.,a,  assailed  in  Horace's  latest  Epistle.  Proper- 
91-101.  ^j^g    iiad   given    himself   the   name   of  the 

Roman  Callimachus,  whose  birth  is  Umbria's  chief  source 


■^(^':^ 


/^' 


r;< 


.U 


jf^'K 


;^ 


THE    ELEGIAC    POETS  219 

of  pride.  One  can  easily  believe  that  to  Horace,  especially 
Horace  grown  gray,  virtuous,  and  philosophic,  Propertius's 
"  straining  after  strong  expression,  self-consciousness,  self- 
assertion,"  as  Professsor  Sellar  well  says,  would  be  distaste- 
ful. His  rough  vigor,  even,  would  repel  such  a  critic 
hardly  less. 

Though  the  poet  evidently  died  in  early  youth,  he  did 

outlive  his  passion  for  Cynthia,  and  became  interested  in 

nobler   themes.     For  instance,   when   Augustus  lost  his 

nephew  and  heir,  the  young  Marcellus,  Propertius  put  the 

elegy  to  its  fittest  use,  though  he  nowhere  approaches  the 

iv_^  ,8.  tender  beauty  of  Virgil's  lines.     Especially 

/Eneid,  vi.,  in   the  last   of   his  four  (or  five)  books  he 

861-87.  declares  his  determination  to  devote  all  his 

genius  to  the  fatherland,  and  the  roll  is  in  fact  largely 

filled  with  patriotic  utterances.     The  paean  on  the  victory 

of  Augustus  as  Actium,  though  written  for  an  anniversary 

fifteen  years  after  the  event,   may  fairly  be  put  beside 

y^  Horace's  famous  ode.     Cynthia  is  dead,  and 

Horace,  i.,  37-      a  powcrf ul  pocm  describes  her  ghost  as  visit- 

^"'''  ing  and  reproaching   her    forgetful   lover. 

She  moreover  prophesies  his  own  approaching  death.    Yet 

beside  this  is  set  a  vivid  account  of  a  merry 

adventure  together  in  their  happiest  days. 

The  last  poem  in  the  collection  is  a  dirge  for  Cornelia, 

the  wife  of  Paulus.     This  deserves  high   place,   though 

hardly   the   highest,   among  Latin   elegies.     It   has  even 

something  of  the  pathetic  simplicity  Avhich 

upra,  p.  17.        ^^^    noted    in    a   much   older  and  briefer 

epitaph.      The  dead  wife  appeals  to  her  husband  : 

"  Now  unto  thee  I  entrust  our  mutual  pledges,  our  children. 
Now  our  household  begins  wholly  thy  burden  to  be. 
If  thou  indeed  must  grieve,  yet  weep  in  solitude  only. 

Greet  them  with  tearless  cheeks,  when  for  thy  kisses  they 
come. 


220  THE    AUGUSTAX    AGE 

Paulus,  enough  if  thou  shalt  spend  thy  nights  in  lamenting, 
While  full  often  in  dreams  ever  my  face  shall  appear." 

This  poem  is  also  assigned  to  the  year  16  b.  c.  No  allusions 
elsewhere  indicate  a  later  date,  and  we  surmise  that  the 
prophecy  of  Cynthia's  wraith  was  promptly  fulfilled  :  that 
indeed  some  incurable  disease  suggested  the  vision,  possibly 
also  turned  the  young  poet's  mind  to  solemn  thoughts, 
and  also  to  purer  human  relations. 

TIBULLUS 

While  Propertius  has  left  us  two  thousand  couplets,  scarce 
half  that  number  bear  Tibullus's  name,  and  even  these  we 
shall  see  reason  to  divide  among  three  authors  at  least.  AVe 
cannot  trace  with  confidence  either  his  inner  or  outer 
Horace,  Epist.,  biography.  Yet  he  comes  much  nearer  our 
'••4-  hearts  than  Propertius  or  Ovid.     Doubtless 

Amores    iii.  9.   Horacc's  hearty  affection  for  him  in  life,  and 

Supra,  pp.  197,  •'  _  ' 

206  Ovid's  graceful  tribute  after  his  death,  help 

win  liim  our  good-will  :  the  more  as  Tibullus  was  not  pre- 
cisely of  their  group. 

The  chief  rival  of  MfBcenas  as  a  patron  of  letters  was 
Marcus  Valerius  Messalla,  himself  a  gallant  soldier,  a  fear- 
(Tk  c  -8  a  d  ^^''^''^  public-spirited  citizen,  an  orator,  a  gram- 
marian, an  historian.  In  his  inner  circle  all 
these  elegies  were  written,  by  whatever  hands.  Tibullus, 
in  particular,  gives  us  a  most  favorable  impression  of 
Messalla. 

Tibullus  is  a  gentle  nature,  a  genuine  poet  on  a  few 
simple  themes.  Though  he  loves  Messalla,  he  detests  war 
and  the  camp,  has  little  taste  for  the  city,  and  is  really 
contelit  with  simple  rustic  life.  He  never  utters  a  confi- 
dent claim  for  immortal  fame  such  as  Horace's  or  Ovid's. 
He  burdens  his  verse  with  no  Alexandrian  pedantry  nor 
far-sought  lore  of  any  sort.     Over  much,  but  not  all,  of  his 


THE   ELEGIAC    POETS  221 

verse  is  the  trail  of  moral  uncleanness.  His  elegies  are 
chiefly  devoted  to  two  equally  unworthy  and  mercenary 
flames,  "  Delia/'  and  "  Nemesis/'  When  we  escape  them 
the  dreamy  poet  is  not  unlike  a  youthful,  unambitious 
E.g.,ii.,  1,51-  Virgil.  Both  are  happiest  when  they  flee 
5*-  from  reality  into  a  gentler  imagined  golden 

age,  where  the  husbandman  tunes  his  pijoe,  care-free,  and 
dances  in  joyous  Bacchus's  honor.  His  gentleness  to  ani- 
mals, again,  can  hardly  be  paralleled  save  in  verses  of  the 
austere  Lucretius. 

"Either  a  lamb  or  a  kid,  by  the  heedless  mother  deserted, 
Not  unwillingly  I  home  in  my  bosom  would  bring." 

When  he  echoes  Catullus,  it  is  some  sweet,  sincere  note 

like  : 

_,  "If    I  may  rest  my   frame   on    the  familiar 

Cf.  supra,  p.  119. 

couch. 

Over  this  amiable  youthful  head  hovers  the  prophecy  of 
early  death.  Bitter  disenchantment  comes,  yet  hope  still 
beckons  him  on.     He  knows  his  own  weakness  : 

"  Often,  how  oft,  have  I  sworn  to  return  no  more  to  her  thresh- 
old : 
Wisely  I  swore  and  well  :  yet  did  my  footsteps  return." 

Tibullus  is  an  extremely  lovable  personage,  and  we  are 
glad  to  gain  from  Horace's  allusions  a  glimpse  of  healthy, 
sturdy  rural  happiness,  somewhat  more  satisfying  than  the 
impression  won  from  the  short-lived  youth's  own  verses. 
As  we  hear  him,  especially  in  these  two  books,  this  minor 
poet  is  unique  in  tone,  and,  in  a  careful  but  copious  selec- 
tion, should  be  read  by  every  young  student  of  Latin 
literature. 

While  neither  Delia  nor  Nemesis  is  vivid  enough  to 
make  us  quite  sure  of  her  reality,  it  is  yet  a  slight  shock 
to  unroll  the  third  of  these  slender  volumes,  and  find  its 
six  elegies  devoted  to  yet  another,  Nesera  !     The  name  is 


222  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

SO  familiar  and  conventional  that  we  need  not  confound  her 
with  Hoi'ace's  fickle  lady.  The  singer  in  this  book  names 
himself  as  Lygdamus,  and  his  comparatively  cold,  prosaic 
verse  has  not  at  all  the  atmosphere  of  Tibullus's.  Yet  in 
the  fifth  elegy  this  singer  also,  lying  fever-stricken  and 
111.^5^3,.  hopeless,    sends   a    dying    greeting   to    his 

/Eneid,  wi.,  493.  absent  friends.  The  words,  a  close  echo  of 
a  Virgilian  line,  are  : 

"  Live,  in  happiness  live  :  yet  of  us  be  not  wholly  unmindful." 

The  fourth  book,  finally,  opening  with  a  tasteless  and 
wearisome  panegyric  on  Messalla  in  more  than  two  hundred 
stiff  hexameters — which  may  be  credited  to  Lygdamus,  or 
yet  another  hand — is  thereafter  devoted,  in  brief,  earnest, 
and  apparently  sincere  elegiac  flights,  to  the  love-affairs  of 
the  lady  Sulpicia.  Messalla's  sister  was  married  to  a  Sul- 
picius,  and  it  is  naturally  surmised  that  this  was  their 
daughter.  Her  lover  is  here  named  Cerinthus.  Half  a 
Book  IV  -la  dozen  very  brief  poems  are  believed  to  be  ac- 
tually her  composition,  possibly  even  real 
letters,  as  their  form  implies.  The  strong,  simple  and 
artless  feeling  struggles  against  the  fetters  of  verse.  The 
longer  and  more  artistic  poems,  in  which  her  story  is  told 
more  objectively,  may  well  be  from  Tibullus's  hand,  though 
undoubtedly  there  were  numberless  other  graceful  versi- 
fiers of  the  day,  who  to  us  will  never  even  be  names.  All 
these  four  volumes  are  usually  printed  and  cited  as  Ti- 
bullus's. 

BIBLIOCxKAPHY 

An  extremely  convenient  single  volume  of  the  Teubner  series  con- 
tains all  Catullus,  Tibullus,  Proi)ertius,  with  the  scanty  fragments  of 
many  lost  lyric  poets.  An  attractive  little  annotated  edition  by  G.  G. 
Ramsay  contains  quite  as  much  of  Tibullus  and  Propertius  as  any 
undergraduate  Latin  course  should  include. 

Both  of  tlieso  poets  are  translated,  essentially  entire,  in  fluent, 
rather  free,  rhymed  verse  by  James  Cranstoun. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

THE  AFTERMATH 

Propertius  is  supposed  to  have  been  several  years  older 
than  Ovid,  and  Tibullus  was  born  somewhat  earlier  yet. 
Ovid  outlived  Augustus,  but  had  at  least  seen  Virgil.  So 
all  these  authors  form  a  single  group,  and  the  arrangement 
here  adopted  is  simply  a  diminuendo  of  ever-lessening  im- 
portance, from  Virgil  to  SlUpicia.      

Clearly  it  is  an  age  of  verse,  though  not  of  lofty  poetic 
ideals.  Drama  is  quite  dead,  if  indeed  it  had  ever  been,  in 
the  Roman  world,  a  living  force.  Epic,  which  should  also 
have  a  national  character,  never  again  reached  a  success  to 
be  compared,  even,  to  the  ^neid.  As  to  lyric  we  must 
point  chiefly  to  Horace,  though  we  are  hardly  assured  that 
a  single  composition  of  his,  save  the  official  "  Carmen  Seecu- 
lare,"  was  ever  sung  in  Roman  streets  or  homes.  It  is  a 
curious  fact,  if  literally  true,  that  Lucretius,  even,  but  not 
Horace,  is  represented  among  the  graffiti  or  scrawled  pen- 
cillings  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii.  Even  Catullus,  so  far  as 
we  know,  only  "  scribbled  verses,"  and  copied  them  for  his 
friends,  without  music. 

The  happy  Greek  union  of  music  and  rhythmic  utter- 
ance was  perhaps  never  attained  on  Latian  soil.  Indeed  our 
own  unfortunate  association  of  "  literature "  with  the 
written  letter,  not  with  the  living,  breathing  utterance,  is 
at  least  partly  chargeable  to  imperial  Rome.  Yet  even  un- 
congenial Horace  and  Propertius  met  to  listen  to,  and  com- 
pliment, each  the  other's  recitations,  while  most  of  our 
"singers"  never  even  heard  their  own  madrigals  and  can- 
zoni  uttered  aloud. 

333 


224  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

The  verses  of  many  other  Augustan  poets  come  to  us,  no 
doubt,  in  the  Virgilitin  Appendix,  the  Latin  Anthology, 
tlie  coarse  sportive  "  Priapeia,"  etc.  The  thankless  task  of 
cataloguing  the  forgotten  names  is  largely  done  for  us  by 
Pontica,  iv.,  i6.  Ovid  in  a  Pontic  epistle,  wherein  thirty  are 
Supra,  pp.  163,     mentioned.     Gallus  was  necessarily  discussed 

166,216  here,  as  Virgil's  friend.    Another  was  Varius, 

who  reverently  edited  and  j)ublished  the  "^neis."  We 
might  welcome  to  the  light  his  courtly  epics  on  Julius  and 
Octavian,  hardly  his  tragedy  on  Thyestes. 

.  The  dull  poem  of  Grattius  on  Hunting,  "  Cynegetica,"  in 
five  hundred  and  forty-one  hexameters,  must  represent  the 
didactic  poetry  of  the  age.  The  extreme  of  frivolity  and 
coarseness,  on  the  other  hand,  is  attained  in  the  "  Priapeia," 
dedicated  to  the  shamelessly  nude  garden-god  who  was  sup- 
posed to  scare  the  birds  and  punish  thieves.  The  eighty 
brief  poems  of  this  group  extant  belong  largely  to  the  age 
of  Augustus.  Most  of  them  are  in  hendecasyllables  or 
iambics.     Some  are  witty,  a  very  few  are  even  proper. 

The  only  prose  work  that  could  be  seriously  mentioned 
with  Livy's  was  the  Universal  History  of  Pompeius  Trogus, 
in  forty-four  books.  This  we  can  now  read  in  the  still 
copious  abridgment  of  Justinus.  The  title,  ''  Ilistorise 
Philippics,"  has  an  un-Roman  sound.  In  fact,  the  history 
of  the  fatherland  is  treated  in  a  strangely  episodic  and 
sketchy  fashion.  Macedonia  is  the  artistic  centre-piece. 
The  work  bears  all  the  marks  of  a  rather  close  translation, 
in  the  main,  from  a  Greek  original,  with  hasty  additions 
which  prove  the  poor  claim  of  the  Latin  editor  to  mastery 
over  the  materials  he  has  "conveyed."  That  no  proper 
acknowledgment  is  made  to  the  writer  of  the  abler  original 
composition  is  quite  in  accordance  with  both  Greek  and 
Latin  usage.  Several  lost  historical  works  have  been  men- 
tioned already. 


THi;   AFTERMATH  225 

Oratory,  in  the  nobler  Ciceronian  sense,  was,  of  course, 
made  all  but  impossible  by  the  loss  of  freedom.  No  real 
senatorial  debate  or  popular  appeal  is  tolerated  by  an  auto- 
crat. Yet  the  law-courts  still  permitted  a  quiet,  honorable 
career.  Occasionally,  no  doubt,  there  might  yet  be  heard 
an  eloquent  funeral  oration,  or  even  a  manly  panegyric  on 
a  living  man  by  such  a  sturdy  spirit  as  Messalla,  who  ten- 
dered to  Augustus  the  title  Cicero  had  craved  :  j^ater  jm- 
trice.  The  fragments  of  Augustan  eloquence  that  reach  us 
we  mainly  owe  to  the  elder  Seneca,  who,  in  extreme  old  age, 
relying  upon  his  phenomenal  memory,  recorded,  in  a  sort 
of  prose  anthology,  the  "  Oratorum  et  Rhetorum  Senten- 
tiae."  Whether  the  many  citations  are  absolutely  accurate 
we  can  never  know.  In  comparison  with  them,  Seneca^s 
own  discussion  of  rhetorical  method  is  of  minor  value. 

The  librarian  and  encyclopasdist  Julius  Hyginus  was  a 
very  inadequate  successor  to  the  great  Varro.  Perhaps  his 
numerous  writings  are  all  lost.  Two  extant  prose  works  of 
value  bear  his  name,  but  the  Latin  is  hardly  worthy  of  the 
Augustan  epoch.  The  Astronomy  is  of  importance  both 
directly  and  for  the  myths  and  astrological  lore  woven  into 
the  theme.  The  other  book  is  a  hand-book  of  mythology, 
and  preserves  many  variations  on  the  legends  which  would 
else  be  unknown  to  us. 

Vitruvius  Pollio  is  a  really  learned  specialist.  His  book, 
''De  Architectura  Libri  X,"  written  in  extreme  old  age  and 
broken  health,  about  16-13  B.C.,  must  be  held  constantly  in 
hand,  and  seriously  reckoned  with,  by  every  earnest  student 
of  classical  construction  and  engineering.  We  are  disposed 
to  accept  his  claim,  that  he  was  the  only  Roman  author 
who  brought  together  all  the  various  branches  of  his  art. 
The  magnificent  remains  of  Roman  baths,  aqueducts,  etc., 
make  this  volume  doubly  important.      Often  he  is  criti- 


226  THE    AUGUSTAN    AGE 

cising  the  work  of  more  promineut  architects  than  himself. 
He  treats  also  snch  subjects  as  construction  of  derricks, 
military  engines,  etc.  Here  the  loss  of  his  drawings  is  es- 
pecially deplorable. 

Vitruvius  cites  many  Greek  authors,  and  no  doubt  con- 
sulted them  either  directly  or  in  compendia.  The  burn- 
ing question  of  classical  archaeology,  whether  the  fifth-cen- 
tury Greeks  had  an  elevated  stage  in  their  theatres,  has 
been  made  to  turn  largely  on  the  decision  whether  Vitru- 
vius is  on  such  a  problem  a  competent  witness,  or  could 
have  confused  early  Greek  with  contemporary  Roman  con- 
struction. 

Vitruvius's  language,  technical  on  the  one  side  and  col- 
loquial on  the  other,  diverges  widely  from  the  rhetorical, 
semi-poetic  elegance  of  Livy  or  Tacitus.  His  style  is 
straightforward  and  usually  clear,  though,  as  he  himself 
foresaw,  it  is  not  easy  for  such  "abstruse  matters  to  be 
lucidly  set  forth  in  writing." 

Least  of  all  can  we  credit  anything  like  literary  quality 
to  the  lexicographer  and  school-master  Verrius  Flaccus, 
tutor  of  Augustus's  short-lived  grandsons.  His  grammati- 
cal and  archffiological  essays  are  quite  lost.  His  great 
lexicon,  entitled  "  De  Verborum  Significatu,"  is  sadly  tat- 
tered, and  what  is  left  is  oftener  accredited  to  the  later 
abbreviator  Festus,  who  showed  his  scholarly  quality 
largely  by  omitting  the  tvholly  obsolete  Avords,  and  Flaccus' 
explanation  of  them ! 

The  barrenness  of  the  later  Augustan  prose  has  been 
quite  sufficiently  exemplified.  It  is  abundantly  clear  that 
it  was  an  age  of  poetry,  of  elegance  in  form,  of  easy 
morals  and  rather  frivolous  tastes.  High  above  their  time 
tower  only  Virgil  and  Livy. 


AUGUSTUS. 
Antique  bust  iu  tlie  Caiutoline  Museum. 


THE   AFTERMATH  327 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Hardly  anything  mentioned  in  this  chapter  need  be  laid  before  the 
youthful  student.  On  the  curious  and  fruitful  subject  of  the  graffiti 
there  is  a  brief  illustrated  article  in  the  Harper  Dictionary  of  Antiqui- 
ties, and  specimens  in  Peck  and  Arrowsmith's  "  Roman  Life  in  Latin 
Prose  and  Verse."  Mature  scholars  will  turn  to  Volume  IV.  of  the 
"  Corpus  Inscriptionum  Latinarum." 

Grattius  or  Gratius  may  be  cursorily  perused  in  Bahrens's  "  Poetae 
Latini  Minores,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  31-53.  The  Priapeia  may  also  be  found  in 
Bahrens,  Vol.  I.,  in  Biicheler's  Petronius,  or  in  Lucian  Miiller's  text  of 
the  elegiac  poets  mentioned  above.  The  text  of  Hyginus  should  be 
accessible  for  reference  in  any  discussion  on  mythological  subjects. 
Seneca's  important  book  is  included  in  the  beautifully  printed  Biblio- 
theca  series  of  Schenkl  (Leipsic  and  Prague).  The  chief  edition  of 
Vitruvius  is  by  Rose,  Leipsic,  1867.  There  is  a  useful  German  trans- 
lation with  notes  by  Reber.  See  also  Terquem,  "  La  Science  Romainc 
a  I'epoque  d'  Auguste. " 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLES 


43  B.C. -14  A.D. 


Political  Events. 

B.C. 

B.O. 

43 

Second  triumvirate.    The  pro- 
scriptions. 

43 

43 

Battle  of  Philippi.  Defeat  and 

42 

death  of  Brutus  and  Cassias. 

42  39 

Meeting  of  Cleopatra  with 

Antony. 

41 

Perusian  war.     Antony's  wife 
Fulvia  and  his  brother  op- 
pose Augustus. 

41 

40 


36 


83 

31 
30 
29 


Death  of  Fulvia.  Reconcilia- 
tion of  triumvirs.  Antony 
marries  Octavia. 


Lepidus  expelled  from  trium- 
virate. 

Maecenas  regent  in  Octavian'a 
absence. 


Final  rupture  of  Octavian  and 
Antony. 

Battle  of  Actium.  Maecenas 
and  Agrippa  regents. 

Death  of  Cleopatra  and  An- 
tony. 

Triple  triumph  of  Augustus. 

Temple  of  Janus  closed. 


39 


37 


Literary  Events. 

Cicero's  Thilippics,  V.-XIV. 

Murder  of  Cicero. 

Sallust's  Catiline. 

Birth  of  Ovid. 

Horace  fought  at  Philippi 

Virgil's  Bucolics. 


Virgil,  Horace,  and  Propertius 
lose  their  estates  in  the  di- 
vision of  lands  among  the 
veterans. 


AsiniuB  Pollio  founds  a  libra- 
ry, and  introduces  public 
readings  by  authors. 

Horace  presents  Virgil  to 
Maecenas. 

Varro  at  eighty  writes  his  "  De 
Re  Rustica." 


35 


32 
31 

30 

29(?) 

28 


Horace's  first  book  of  Satires. 
Death  of  Sallust. 


Death  of  Atticus. 
Horace's  Epodes. 

Horace's  second  book  of  Sat- 
ires. 

Publication  of  Virgil's  Geor- 
gics. 

Death  of  Varro. 


228 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES 


229 


Political  Events. 


B.C. 


Literary  Events. 


27  Octavian  receives  title  of  Au- 
gustus, and  powers  of  tri- 
bune, consul,  pontifex,  and 
imperator.  Formal  crea- 
tion of  the  empire. 


20        Parthians  surrender  standards 

captured  from  Crassus. 

19        Herod  rebuilds  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem. 

17        Secular  games  celebrated. 


11-9    German  campaigns  and  death 
of  Drusus. 


B.O. 


26 
23 
20 

19 


Death  of  Gallus. 
Horace's  Odes,  I.-IIL 
Horace's  Epistles,  Book  I. 


Death  of  Virgil. 
Death  of  Tibullus. 
19-14  Horace's  Epistles,  Book  IIL 
17        Horace  composes   the    "  Car- 
men Sasculare  " 
1&-13  Vitruvius  composes  his  work 

on  architecture. 
15        Death  of  Propertius. 
13        Horace's  Odes,  Book  IV. 


9  Ovid's  A  mores, 

8  Death  of  Maecenas  and  Horace 

7         Birth  of  Seneca. 


6-4      Tiberius     in    retirement     at 
Rhodes 

4(B.c)  Birth  of  Jesus. 

1  (?)    Ovid's  Art  of  Love. 


A.D. 

4  Augustus  adopts  Tiberius. 

4-6      Tiberius's  campaigns  in  Ger- 
many. 

8  Banishment    of    the  younger 

Julia. 

9  Defeat  of  Varus  and  destruc- 

tion of  his  legions  by  Her- 
mann. 

12        Tiberius  triumphs  over  the  II- 
lyrians . 

14        Census  taken.    4,197,000  citi- 
zens. 
Death  of  Augustus,  at  Nola 
in  Campania,  August  19th. 


A.D. 


Banishment  of  Ovid. 


BOOK   IV 
THE  AGE  OF  SILVER  LATIN 

(14  A.D.-120  A.D.) 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  EARLY  EMPIRE 

It  is  not  at  all  unnsual  to  close  a  political  history  of  the 
Eomans  with  the  accession  of  Octavian  to  official  suprem- 
acy. This  would  be  absurd  in  the  story  of  their  literature, 
since  the  early  Augustan  group  is  the  most  brilliant  of  any. 
With  Ovid,  however,  at  the  latest,  we  leave  behind  all  who 
had  been  born  and  bred  in  the  air  of  freedom. 

Yet  even  here  it  is  hard  to  pause.  Deathlike  as  is  the 
sombre  reign  of  Tiberius,  he  himself,  with  his  nephew 
Germanicus,  the  popular  idol,  and  his  evil  genius  Sejanus, 
are  etched  for  us  nearly  a  century  later,  in  imperishable 
outlines,  by  Tadtus,  master  of  the  most  original  and 
effective  style  in  Latin  literature.  To  Tacitus,  at  least, 
our  tale  must  run  without  decisive  break.  Yet  Tiberius's 
jealousy  toward  all  eminent  capacity,  his  covert  resentment 
even  when  earlier  Romans  were  eulogized,  the  growth  of 
the  professional  informers  (delatores),  the  paralysis  of  all 
free  utterance  or  activity  of  any  kind,  left  to  the  noblest 
spirits  no  choice  save  stoical  endurance  of  life  or  deliberate 
suicide.  When  such  a  man  could  fill  out  his  quarter- 
century  of  power,  exerted  chiefly  in  absentia,  die  a  natural 
death,  and  transmit  his  sceptre  to  an  untried  kinsman — 
the  life  of  his  people  as  a  whole  is  effete  indeed.  Tiberius 
had  been,  at  least,  a  gallant  leader  of  Augustus's  armies. 
His  successors  had  no  claim  to  respect  save  their  Julian 
blood,  or  adoption. 

Octavian's  control  had  been  eagerly  welcomed,  at  first, 
as  the  only  hope  of  escape  from  interminable  civic  strife. 
His  firm-held  power  was  in  some  degree  concealed  behind 

233 


234  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

old  forms  and  offices  still  retained.  The  accession  of  his 
heir  first  made  perfectly  clear  that  the  world  was  under 
the  feet  of  an  hereditary  dynasty.  AVe  are  disposed  to 
remember  Augustus  as  the  genial,  middle-aged  patron  and 
comrade  of  the  great  poets,  as  the  secure  and  contented 
pater  patriae.  But  he  was  embittered  by  the  frequent 
plots  against  his  life,  and  grew  in  old  age  suspicious,  arbi- 
trary, violent,  so  that  the  tale  of  his  last  years  too  often 
reminds  us  of  the  cold,  long-headed  boy,  Octavian,  who 
had  profited  by  the  proscriptions,  without  accepting  the 
chief  odium  from  them. 

As  for  the  four  kinsmen  who  succeeded  him,  the  merci- 
less judgments   and   biting   rhetoric  of  Tacitus,   Seneca, 
Tiberius,  14-        Juvcnal,  may  have  unduly  colored  our  opin- 
37  A.D.  ions,  but  it  seems  only  charitable  to  believe 

Caligula,  37-       ^j^^t  not  One  of  them  was  fully  sane.     Pos- 

41  A.D.  •' 

sibly  the  lonely  and  dangerous  eminence  of 

Claudius,  41-  "^  •' 

54  A.D.  the  imperial  throne  made  some  form  of  mad- 

Nero,  54-  ness  almost  inevitable.    More  probably  licen- 

68  A.D.  tiousness,  and  indulgence  generally,  had  left 

a  brand  on  the  whole  Julian  line.  There  is,  of  course,  a 
wide  diversity,  from  the  lonely  and  deadly  silence  of 
Tiberius  to  the  feverish  versatility  of  Nero,  yet  the  whole 
effect  of  their  rule  was  oppressive,  nay  destructive,  to  any- 
thing like  brilliant  talent,  or  illustrious  character,  among 
their  obsequious  subjects.  Each  of  them,  like  Julius  and 
Augustus,  had  some  literary  gift  or  taste.  This  only 
fanned  the  flame  of  their  murderous  jealousy, 

Nero's  excesses  filled  the  cup  of  Roman,  even  of  provin- 
cial patience.  The  revolutionary  discovery,  that  an  em- 
Tacitus,  Histo-  pcror  could  be  created  far  from  Rome,  was 
suddenly    made.      Vespasian,    the   eventual 


ries,  I.,  4. 
68-69  A.D. 


Qaiba,  otho,      outcome  from  the  anarchy  of  68-69  A.u.,  and 
viteiiius,  yet  more  his  noble  son,   Titus,  who  ruled 

slain.  both  with  and  after  him,   seemed  to  have 


lWIIJ''l^    " 


'o 


THE    EARLY    EMPIRE  235 

established  a  saner  and  liumaner  dynasty.     Yet  Domitian, 

reigning  longer  than  his  father   and   brother  combined, 

rivalled    Caligula    or    Nero    in   demoniacal 

Vp'a'.d"'  '       cruelty,    and   deadly   hatred    of    all    noble 
TituB,  79-81         distinction.      It  was    after    his    reign,   not 

A.D.  Nero's,  that   gentle   Pliny,  drawing  a  free 

Domitian,  8i-       breath,    exclaimed  :    ''At    last    men  come 

^^^'  '  through  merit  to  honor,  not  into  peril,  as 

heretofore."     Tacitus,  as  was  his  nature,  speaks  far  more 
bitterly  in  his  "  Agricola." 

Whatever  we  may  believe  as  to  the  effect  of  paternal 
despotism  upon  the  career  of  a  Virgil  or  a  TibuUus,  this 
first  century  of  our  era  as  a  whole  could  not  but  be  destruc- 
tive of  all  healthy  intellectual  or  artistic  energy.  Its  real 
effects  are  perhaps  best  seen  in  the  next 
'  "'  °  ■  '  epoch,  when  the  strong  and  wise  rule  of  the 
five  good  emperors  could  not  save  their  realm  from  steady 
decay.  In  that  age,  too,  the  utter  collapse  of  literature  is 
especially  evident. 

Other  large  causes  were  clearly  hastening  the  decline. 
What  we  call  Latin  literature  had  always  been  largely 
Greek  in  its  sources,  models,  and  spirit.  The  inspiration 
of  the  old  myths  was  now  at  last  exhausted.  Freely  traves- 
tied in  Rome  so  early  as  Plautus,  vulgarized  even  in  Ovid's 
artistic  hands,  the  Olympic  gods  had  lost  all  power  over 
men's  hearts  and  minds.  Almost  any  strange  Asiatic  cult 
was  accepted  or  tolerated,  since  all  were  alike  half-disdained 
by  the  rulers  of  the  world.  Indeed,  the  final  struggle  of 
Roman  paganism  against  Roman  Christianity  was  led  by 
Isis  and  Mithra  rather  than  by  Pallas  and  Apollo. 

In  the  crowded,  luxurious,  and  brutalized  metropolis, 
every  form  of  self-indulgence  seemed  to  grow  swiftly  stale. 
From  Seneca  to  Juvenal  and  Tacitus,  the  writers  of  the 
so-called  Silver  Age  are  in  one  respect  nearly  all  alike,  and 
strikingly  diverse  from  Ovid  :  they  are  aware  that  their 


236  THE  AGE   OF  SILVER  LATIN 

environment  is  ignoble  :  and  while  they  are  disillusionized 
as  to  the  present,  they  are  hopeless  as  to  the  future. 

The  age  of  Silver  Latin  can  hardly  be  defined  with  exact, 
ness.  Cicero  and  Livy,  Lucretius  and  Virgil,  are  by 
universal  consent  the  largest  or  loftiest  fig- 
14.117  A.D.(?)  ^^j-eg  of  Latin  literature.  After  them  there 
is  a  distinct  gap,  then  a  flickering  revival  which  culmi- 
nates in  Tacitus's  generation.  Yet  as  a  whole  this  is  a 
darkening  day,  and  no  real  development  is  possible. 
Even  the  cleverest  authors,  as  we  have  seen  already  in 
Statius's  case,  cast  their  eyes  backward  toward 
Supra,  p.  156        n^asters  whom  they  do  not  hope  to  rival. 

Already  we  are  tempted  to  treat  each  life  as  an  isolated 
study.  Our  groups  must  often  be  merely  made  up  of 
writers  whom  the  chance  of  birth  alone  brought  into  the 
same  decades,  or  into  a  particular  reign.  Disintegration 
is  a  sign  of  death,  if  not  death  itself.  Brilliant  talent,  ay, 
genius,  may  yet  appear :  Tacitus,  or  even  Apuleius,  may 
claim  the  prouder  title  :  but  the  general  life  of  the  spirit 
perishes  with  the  national  aspiration  and  hope. 

We  may  perhaps  best  divide  the  first  century  a.d.  into 
the  conventional  ''three  generations."     The  first  carries 
us  almost  to  Tiberius's  death,  the  second  to 
68  A.D.'  the  fall  of  the  Julian  line  with  Nero.     The 

first  period,  by  its  extreme  poverty  of  intellectual  genius, 
forms  the  gap  just  mentioned  between  the  Gold  and  the 
Silver  Age.  Ovid  at  his  departure  from  Rome  left  there 
no  author  whom  we  can  account  important.  The  whole 
story  of  Tiberius's  decades  will  occupy  us  but  a  page  or 
two. 

AUTHORS   OF   tiberius's    TIME. 

Celsus's  treatise  on  Medicine,  in  eight  books,  is  a  surviv- 
ing section  of  an  encyclopaedia,  entitled '' Artes,"  which  once 
included  philosophy,  rhetoric,  law,  the  mili- 

BooksVI.  toXIII.  ,  ^  J  T,  /I)      1       T     \T  \  ^UU 

tary  art,  and  even  began  (liooks  l.-V.)  witn 


THE    EARLY   EMPIEE  237 

agriculture.  The  compiler  follows  the  great  Greek  phy- 
sician Hippocrates,  and  other  good  models ;  his  Latin  is 
pure  and  clear  ;  the  chance  of  survival  makes  the  book 
our  main  authority  for  the  entire  Roman  period,  indeed 
for  the  whole  time  since  Hippocrates,  on  medical  practice  ; 
„  _  but  the  subject  is  of  course  technical,  not  of 

general  interest.  Indeed,  it  seems  probable 
that  Celsus  Avas  himself  a  specialist  in  medicine. 

Of  the  writers  sometimes  represented  in  our  school- 
books,  Valerius  Maximus  is  a  tasteless  and  witless  collector 
of  anecdotes,  to  which  his  vanity,  and  fulsome  eulogy  of 
the  emperor,  make  no  desirable  addition.  Velleius  Pater- 
culus  is  no  less  servile,  and  his  brief  compendium  of  Roman 
history,  in  two  books  only,  with  its  stilted  rhetoric  and 
pompous  style,  seems  wearisomely  long.  The  elder  Seneca, 
already  mentioned,  probably  made  the  actual  written  rec- 
ords, from  his  marvellous  memory,  in  Tiberius's  time. 

With  Phaedrus,  the  sprightly  versifier  of  fables,  we  hardly 
pass  over  into  the  realm  of  poetry.  Beginning  as  a  mere 
paraphraser  of  ^sop,  he  claims  for  himself  more  and  more 
originality,  even  a  lofty  rank  among  the  immortal  bards  of 
Rome.  We  can  hardly  give  him  more  than  a  modest  place 
among  juvenile  classics,  at  best.  Yet  there  is  actually  but 
one  other  writer  of  verse  to  be  mentioned — and  the  name 
itself  is  extremely  doubtful,  the  author's  life  utterly  un- 
known, while  the  assignment  to  Tiberius's  reign  is  merely 
due  to  certain  passages  which  point  to  that  time. 

M,  Manilius,  also  named  in  our  MSS.  as  Malius  or  Mal- 
lius,  of  unknown  age  or  birth,  is  the  composer  of  an  astro- 
nomical, or  rather  astrological,  poem,  in  five  books.  The 
subject  has  recurred  already  both  in  Greek  and  in  Latin  : 
yet  the  poet  has  some  justification  when  he  claims  to  be  a 
pioneer.  In  bold  and  lofty  speculation,  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  grave  difficulties  to  surmount,  in  its  rugged  style, 
in  the  picturesqueness  of  certain  episodes,  in   occasional 


238  THE   AGE    OF   SILVEK    LATIN 

tenderness,  finally  even  by  its  unfinished  condition  and  im- 
perfect transmission,  the  poem  reminds  us  of  Lucretius's, 
which  it,  however,  as  a  whole  nowise  equals.  Sometimes 
Manilius  corrects  Lucretius's  scientific  fallacies,  or  assails 
the  philosophic  errors  of  earlier  times,  e.g.,  the  notion 
that  the  seas  are  a  divinely  appointed  barrier  between 
nations. 

Especially  do  we  welcome  this  poet's  earnest  theism.    In 

some  passages  he  states  strongly  the  pantheistic  notions 

which  Lucretius  approaches,  as  it  were,  de- 

'  spite  himself .    The  immortality  of  the  human 

soul  seems  to  him  no  less  evident. 

"  Is  there  a  doubt  that  a  god  within  our  breast 
Iv.,  886-87.  ,  ^      ,,• 

has  a  dwelling, 

Or  that  souls  of  men  returning  attain  unto  Heaven  ?  " 


His  doctrines  are  essentially  Stoic.  Especially  is  his  fatal- 
ism prominent. 

"  Destiny  ruleth  the  world  :  by  fixt  law  all  is  appointed." 

We  may  foresee  our  doom  in  the  stars,  but  we  can  nowise 
modify  or  evade  it.  Only  in  knowledge  may  man  approach 
divinity,  not  in  power.  The  note  of  repining  is  not  lack- 
ing. 

"  Ever  we  plan  to  begin  our  life,  but  never  are  living." 

Altogether  this  poem,  not  once  mentioned  by  any  ancient 
author,  deserves  to  be  better  known.  But  again,  as  at 
Cicero's  advent,  we  must  turn  suddenly  from  obscure  half- 
forgotten  names  to  a  career  which  fills,  and  seems  to  domi- 
nate, a  whole  generation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Manilius  is  so  little  known  to  American  scholars,  that  the  still  useful 
and  accessible  critical  edition  of  Jacob  (Reimer,  Berlin,  1846),  may  be 
mentioned  here. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

SENECA 

3  B.C.-A.D.   65. 

Once  again  the  new  impulse  in  Latin  letters  comes  from 
another  land.  The  elder  Seneca  was  born  in  Cordova, 
where  a  house  is  still  pointed  out  as  his.  Thither  he  was 
fond  of  retiring,  especially  toward  the  close  of  his  long  life. 
His  three  sons  have  all,  in  different  degrees,  an  interest  for 
us.  The  eldest,  adopted  by  his  father's  friend,  was  that  ruler 
of  Achaia  who  looked  on,  with  truly  Roman  contempt,  while 
a  mob  of  Greeks  beat  the  ''chief  ruler  of  the  synagogue  * 
in  Corinth,  and  again  when  the  Jews  attempted  to  arraign 
Paul  for  heresy  before  the  governor's  seat  of  judgment. 
"  Gallio  cared  for  none  of  these  things,"  says  the  chronicler: 
and  by  this  disregard  for  the  quarrels  of  subject  races,  for- 
N.  T.  Acts  gotten  by  him  in  a  day,   ''careless  G-allio's" 

xviH.,  17.  name  has  come  down  to  us  as  a  byword.    Yet 

his  famous  kinsman  left  for  him  this  epitaph:  "No  mortal 
was  ever  so  sweet  to  anyone  as  he  was  to  all  men."  The 
youngest  brother,  Mela,  was  the  father  of  the  poet  Lucan, 
and  was  dragged  down  to  ruin  with  his  son  when  that 
young  life  came  to  its  cowardly  end. 

The  far  more  famous  second  brother,  Lucius  Annaeus 
Seneca,  was  born  like  his  father  at  Cordova,  but  educated 
in  Rome.  He  also  spent  some  time  in  Egypt,  of  which  his 
aunt's  husband,  Pollio,  was  governor.  Though  carefully 
trained  in  the  rhetorical  studies  of  his  father,  he  showed  a 
strong  preference  for  philosophy,  including  natural  science, 
but  especially  ethics.     In  fact,  he  is  so  clearly  a  preacher, 

239 


240  THE    AGE   OF   SILVER    LATIN 

that  we  cannot  wonder  at  the  baseless  legend,  that  he  was 
the  personal  friend  and  correspondent  of  the  apostle  Paul. 
Distinguished  ability  like  Seneca's  would  suffice  to  make 
him  the  target  of  the  professional  informers.  Under 
Caligula  he  was  saved  from  condemnation,  for  the  crimes 
of  excessive  wealth  and  eloquence,  only  on  the  plea  that 
he  was  already  marked  for  early  death  by  consumption. 
In  Claudius's  time   he  was  again   accused. 

At  R  C  o  ' 

and  exiled  to  Corsica.  The  charge,  that  he 
was  a  lover  of  the  princess  Julia  Livilla,  Caligula's  sister, 
we  need  not  believe. 

Seneca  was  suddenly  recalled,  given  the  office  of  praetor, 
and  made  tutor  of  the  young  Nero.  This  swift  rise 
seems  clearly  a  part  of  the  schemes  of  the 
ambitious  Agrippina,  who  just  at  this  time 
succeeds  as  empress  the  notorious  and  ill-fated  Messalina. 
The  adoption,  by  the  emperor,  of  his  stepson  Nero  soon 
followed.  In  the  murder  of  Claudius  by  his  wife  Seneca 
need  not  have  been  an  accessory:  but  he  debased  his  genius 
to  unseemly  ridicule  on  the  dead  ruler,  lauded  his  murder- 
ers, and  shared  their  gains. 

The  most  dreadful  of  all  the  family  tragedies  in   the 
doomed  house,  however,  was  the  elaborately  planned  de- 
struction of  Agrippina  by  the  unnatural  son 
for  whom  she  had  made  every  possible  sacri- 
fice.    This  fearful  deed  Seneca  at  least  condoned,  even  de- 
fended as  a  political  necessity. 

Presently  he  realized  that  his  enormous  wealth,  and  un- 
wise display,  were  endangering  his  own  life.  Offering  straight- 
way all  his  fortune  as  a  gift  to  his  young  master,  he  at- 
tempted to  retire  to  Spain.  It  was  too  late.  Entangled 
in  flimsy  charges  of  treason,  such  as  were  now  always  at  the 
tyrant's  command,  he  was  bidden  to  end  his 
life.  This  he  did  with  the  promptness  of  a 
true  Roman,  even  with  the  philosophic  dignity  of  a  Socrates. 


SEISTECA  241 

It  was  an  example  which  Nero  himself,  a  few  years  later, 
ignobly  failed  to  follow. 

Such  a  life  makes  ns  understand  better,  why  the  choicest 
spirits  of  the  age  usually  preferred  a  self-inflicted  death. 
It  opens  a  glimpse  at  the  conditions  of  government  by  a 
despot  under  the  sway  of  Greek  freedmen,  unprincipled 
women,  and  professional  informers.  But  above  all,  it 
shows  some  of  the  temptations  which  ensnared  a  nature 
not  wholly  unfit  to  stand  beside  Cicero:  for  like  him  Seneca 
was  ambitious,  vacillating,  patriotic  ;  quite  as  tender,  and 
truer  to  the  closest  home-ties,  humane  and  loving  to 
slaves ;  gifted,  also,  with  unlimited  power  of  fluent  and 
pleasing  utterance. 

Seneca  is  the  most  brilliant  expositor  of  Stoic  philoso- 
phy. He  expresses  high  regard,  too,  for  the  Cynics,  who 
may  be  called  the  logical  reductio  ad  dbsurduni  of  Stoicism, 
for  they  preach  not  merely  temperate  self-denial  but  the 
seclusion  of  a  hermit  or  a  stylite.  Nay,  this  tolerant  school- 
man realized,  that  even  Epicures,  with  his  purest  disciples, 
under  another  name  and  by  a  different  path,  had  reached 
nearly  the  same  ethical  goal.  Like  Plato,  he  is  disposed 
to  regard  this  life  as  an  exile  and  imprisonment  of  the 
erring  soul.  Seneca,  therefore,  naturally,  hopes  for  an 
immortal  future  life  of  the  soul:  though  this,  or  any  other 
reward  of  virtue,  is  no  cardinal  doctrine  of  Stoicism. 
Epictetos  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  for  instance,  barely  allude 
to  such  a  prospect  as  possible.  Here  again  we  see  how 
close  Seneca  comes  to  the  apostolic  teachings  of  his  time. 

"  Why  some  troubles  befall  good  men,  though  there  be  a 
Providence. ' ' 

"On  tranquillity  of  spirit." 

"  That  a  wise  man  can  suffer  neither  injury  nor  disgrace." 

"  To  my  mother  Helvia,  on  consolation." 

These  are  certainly  very  natural  theses  for  a  moral  phi- 
losopher in  the  first  century.     Twelve  extended  discourses 


242  THE    AGE    OF    SILVER   LATIN 

on  such  themes  make  up  the  ''Dialogues":  ill-named,  for 
Seneca's  tendency  to  monologue  is  even  more  marked  than 
Cicero's.  The  discourse  addressed  to  an  heroic  and  bereft 
woman,  Marcia,  is  also  entitled  "De  Consolatione."  But 
a  third  time  the  title  appears,  when  Polybios,  a  viHanous 
freedman  and  intriguer  of  the  imperial  court,  has  lost  a 
brother.  Here  both  creature  and  master  are  skilfully 
flattered,  and  Seneca's  own  desire  for  jDardon  is  delicately 
touched. 

"  In  order  that  the  tears  of  those  who  are  in  peril,  and  would 
fain  attain  the  mercy  of  most  clement  Caesar,  may  be  dried, 
you  must  needs  dry  your  own.  .  .  .  He  did  not  cast  me 
down,  but  when  I  was  assailed  by  fortune,  and  falling,  he 
upheld  me.  He  granted,  nay  begged  for  my  life.  It  is  my 
chief  comfort  in  misery  to  see  his  mercy  traverse  all  the 
world.  .  .  .  He  best  linows  the  time  when  he  should 
rescue  each.  .  .  .  Well  may  you  know  these  thunder- 
bolts to  be  most  just,  which  even  they  who  are  stricken  adore. " 

The  seven  books  on  natural  science — which  is  marked 
off  in  three  cosmic  zones,  astronomy,  meteorology  and 
geography — had  great  influence  in  the  Middle  Ages,  though 
now,  of  course,  little  more  than  a  storehouse  of  curious 
guesses.  This  is  almost  the  only  large  work  of  Seneca's 
which  we  can  fairly  call  secular,  and  even  here  he  would 
have  us  view  nature  always  as  the  clear  and  orderly  handi- 
work of  deity.  He  has,  like  other  Stoics,  a  high  and  pure 
conception  of  tlie  supreme  "  Artifex." 

The  no  less  extended  work  "  On  Benefits  "  contains  much 
of  interest.  In  Book  III.,  especially,  pathetic  examples  of 
devotion  shown  by  slaves  to  their  masters  are  brought  to- 
gether. Such  teachings  of  human  equality  may  really 
have  been  quickened,  even  without  Seneca's  own  knowl- 
edge, by  the  apostolic  teachings  :  but  also  by  the  terrible 
social  conditions  which  all  but  made  every  Ilomau  an  ab- 
ject and  trembling  slave. 


SENECA  243 

Yet,  since  the  briefest  sermons  are  often  the  best,  we 
find  it  easier  to  enjoy  Seneca's  so-called  "  Letters,"  col- 
lected in  the  twenty  books  "Ad  Lucilium,"  We  need  not 
envy  Gellius,  who  read  twenty-two  books  at  least.  Yet 
every  wide-ranging  Latinist,  student  of  ethics,  or  even  of 
style,  should  dip  deeply — it  matters  little  just  where — 
into  these  mature  reflections  on  life.  Wherever  he  opens, 
he  will  be  struck  by  a  happy  phrase.  In  the  brevity, 
rapidity,  and  ostentatious  simplicity  of  the  sentence  he 
may  be  reminded,  at  first,  of  Emerson.     E.g., 

"  The  way  is  safe,  is  pleasant,  is  one  for  which  nature  has 
fitted  tliee.  She  has  given  thee  tliat,  which  if  thou  neglect 
not  tliou  shaft  rise  to  the  god's  level.  But  not 
■  money  shall  make  thee  god-like  :  the  god  hath 
nothing.  The  robe  will  not  make  thee  so:  the  god  is  naked. 
Fame,  or  display,  or  knowledge  of  thy  name  spread  among  the 
nations  will  not  avail  :  the  god  no  one  hath  known.  Many 
think  ill  of  him  :  and  are  not  punished." 

Yet  slowly,  surely,  our  enthusiasm  flags.  Just  why,  can- 
not be  so  briefly  told.  In  the  first  place,  as  Quintilian 
ouint  X  I  I20  sternly  declares,  the  style  itself  is  an  essen- 
tially perverse  one,  and  even  in  a  master's 
hand  it  can  beguile  us  for  a  time,  but  not  hold  us  captive 
forever.  Emerson's  eye  is  fixed  on  a  real  and  living  image: 
his  words  are  the  fittest  and  simplest  by  which  it  can  be 
swiftly  set  before  us.  Or,  he  divines  deep  currents,  even 
an  ocean,  of  truth  undiscovered,  and  his  keen,  cold,  flash- 
ing phrase  lights  ns,  at  least,  as  far  as  our  eager  vision  can 
follow  his.  But  Seneca  loves  the  phrase  for  itself.  He 
culls  words  as  a  lady  gathers  bright  flowers  and  matches 
their  tints.  Sometimes  the  thought  they  convey  is  wise, 
helpful,  original.  Quite  as  often,  under  the  waving 
plumes  and  polished  visor  of  his  rhetoric,  peep  out  the 
homely  features  of  a  trite  commonplace  or  even  a  childish 
truism.  E.g.   "  For  those  who  voyage  this  sea,  tempestuous 


244  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

and  exposed  to  all  changes  of  weather,  there  is  no  port, 
save  that  of  death."  Emerson's  sentences  challenge  us  to 
expand  them  into  paragraphs.  Seneca's  pages  we  can 
always  condense  without  loss. 

Again,  the  moral  application  is  too  insistent,  the 
preacher's  tone  too  strident.  We  cannot  forget  what  his 
own  life  was.  The  sermon  just  quoted  continues  :  "  The 
mob  of  slaves  avails  not,  tha  bear  thy  litter  on  journeys 
through  town  and  field."  We  recall,  that  Seneca's  retinue 
was  all  but  imperial.  This  advocate  of  contentment  in 
poverty  was  the  richest  of  courtiers.  He  bade  his  dis- 
ciples live,  as  Emerson  said  to  Thoreau,  in  one-room 
cabins,  but  he  entertained  them  at  five  hundred  tables  glo- 
rious in  cedar  and  ivory.  All  this,  indeed,  he  frankly  con- 
fesses, bidding  men  follow  his  precept,  not  his  example. 

Seneca's  taste  is  hardly  as  florid  and  highly  colored  as 
that  of  his  century  generally.  Perhaps  we  ought  not  to 
emphasize  the  passages  where,  in  detailing  the  excesses  of 
Julia  or  the  unnatural  vices  of  the  age,  he  seems,  like 
Juvenal,  to  take  a  morbid  interest  in  the  very  sins  that  he 
condemns. 

The  blackest  shadows  on  this  strange,  tragic,  splendid 
life  have  already  been  indicated.  The  portrait  statue  that 
usually  bears  his  name  is,  like  most,  of  doubtful  authentic- 
ity. Yet  the  general  voice  insists  on  its  fitness.  The  fur- 
rowed brow  has  other  lines  than  those  of  age  and  thought. 
Out  of  the  eyes  gazes  a  hunted,  a  horrified,  if  not  a  lost 
soul.  It  reminds  us  of  the  phrase  in  which  the  greatest  of 
evangelists  uttered  the  awful  doubt  lest,  while  he  pointed 
out  for  others  the  heavenward  path,  he  himself  might 
"  become  a  castaway." 

Yet  there  are  numberless  happy  turns  to  be  learned  from 
Seneca's  style.  If  not  whole  sermons,  much  less  entire  vol- 
umes, are  to  be  treasured,  yet  hundreds  of  sentences  might 
well  be  utilized  by  our  Latin  instructors  who  cast  about  so 


tSU-C'ALM:i)    SEX  EC  A. 
Antique  hronze  bust  from  IIiTcnlaiii'um,  now  in  Naples  Mnsouni. 


SENECA  245 

hopelessly  in  qnest  of  classical  material  fit  for  childish  eyes. 
While  Seneca  loved  power,  glory,  splendor,  and  sacrificed 
for  them  his  lasting  good  name  and  present  peace  of  mind, 
yet  in  an  age  of  betrayal  and  ghastly  selfishness  he  appears 
steadfast  to  all  ties  of  intimate  friendship  or  family  love. 
At  the  worst,  his  example  has  long  since  ceased  to  be 
harmful.  Much  of  his  ethical  teaching  has  been  fittingly 
adopted,  even  by  popes  and  church  councils,  as  at  least 
sharing  largely  the  authority  of  Christian  dogma. 

The  works  already  mentioned  now  fill  over  a  thousand 
solid  Teubner  pages.  Yet  a  long  list  of  his  lost  moral 
treatises  is  represented  by  titles  and  citations  in  later 
writers,  especially  in  great  Christian  authors  lilie  Lactan- 
tius,  Tertullian,  Jerome,  and  Augustine.  We  turn  to  a 
most  curious  work  also  ascribed,  but  with  less  certainty,  to 
Nero's  tutor.  It  is  probably  the  best  extant  example  of  the 
Menippean  satire,  in  deftly  mingled  prose  and  verse,  for 
which  Varro  was  especially  famous. 

THE   SATIRE   ON   CLAUDIUS. 

A  prosy  Greek  chronicler  mentions  a  satire  of  Seneca 
on  Claudius's  death,  called  "  Apokolokyntosis  "  instead  of 
"Apotheosis."  We  may  render  "  Pumpkinification,"  or 
"  Reception  of  Claudius  among  the  Gourds."  Among  the 
extant  works  is  a  most  clever,  imaginative  and  ungracious 
extravaganza,  upon  this  very  subject.  Claudius  arrives  on 
Olympus,  misshapen,  halting,  mumbling,  as  in  life.  Even 
the  wide- wandering  Heracles  cannot  identify  the  newcomer. 
His  sole  escort.  Fever,  finally  makes  him  known.  His  ad- 
mission is  seriously  considered,  but  finally  denied  after  an 
eloquent  denunciation  of  his  murders  and  other  crimes,  ut- 
tered by  his  own  grandfather  Augustus. 

Passing  downwai'd  toward  Hades,  Claudius  is  pleased  to 
see  his  own  funeral  in  the  Via  Sacra.     We  hear  the  dirge. 


246  THE    AGE   OF    SILVER   LATIN 

made  up  in  Aristophanic  fashion  of  sincere  praise,  e.g.,  for 
his  victories  in  Britain,  mingled  with  ridicule  : 

"  Mourn  for  the  hero 
Than  whom  more  swiftly 
Never  another 
Could  settle  a  lawsuit, 
Hearing  but  one  side, 
— Frequently  neither  !  " 

The  tale  ends  in  a  confused  fashion.  In  the  under- world 
Claudius  is  twice  sentenced  :  once  to  dice  forever  with  a 
bottomless  box,  and  again  to  be  the  slave  and  drudge  of  a 
freed  man. 

But  of  transformation  into  a  gourd  there  is  no  hint. 
Some  ingenious  editors  think  this  was  still  a  third  doom 
now  lost  from  our  MSS,  ;  or,  that  Seneca  wrote  two  distinct 
satires  after  Claudius's  death;  or,  yet  again,  that  this  heart- 
less skit  is  not  from  Seneca's  hand  at  all.  There  is,  how- 
ever, little  doubt  as  to  the  authorship. 

While  the  dead  Claudius  is  thus  loaded  with  every  con- 
ceivable insult,  Nero  is  hailed  as  the  harbinger  of  a  golden 
age.     Apollo  is  introduced  prophesying  to  the  Fates  : 

"  He  shall  transcend  the  years  of  mortal  life, 
Like  me  in  face  and  beauty,  nor  in  song 
And  eloquence  inferior.      He  shall  bring 
A  happy  age  to  wearied  men,  and  end 
The  silence  of  the  laws." 

The  treatise  on  Clemency,  in  three  books,  with  which 
the  philosopher  hailed  his  pupil's  succession  to  imperial 
power,  expresses  much  the  sauie  high  hopes.  Indeed,  the 
first  years  of  Nero's  reign  threw  credit  on  himself  and  on 
his  Mentor.  How  bitterly  Seneca,  as  well  as  the  rest  of 
the  world,  was  later  undeceived,  need  not  be  repeated. 


SENECA  24^ 


THE   LATIN   TRAGEDIES. 

After  all  that  has  been  said  as  to  the  steady  degradation 
of  the  Eoman  theatre,  it  is  surprising  to  find,  in  the  age 
of  Nero,  and  included  among  the  works  of  Seneca,  the  only 
serious  Latin  dramas  that  have  survived. 

Of  these,  one  is  doubly  interesting,  since  the  scene  is 
laid  in  Nero's  palace,  and  in  the  year  62  a.d.  The  real 
subject  is  the  utter  downfall  of  the  Julian  house.  The 
central  figure  is  Octavia,  daughter  of  Claudius,  the  unwill- 
ing and  unhonored  wife  of  the  tyrant.  In  her  opening 
soliloquy,  in  the  following  scenes  with  her  nurse  and,  later, 
with  a  sympathizing  chorus,  are  rehearsed  the  murders 
of  her  father  and  of  her  young  brother,  Britannicus,  and 
all  the  horrors  of  the  situation. 

In  the  next  scene  appears  Seneca,  who  soliloquizes  at 
much  length  and  learning  on  the  progressive  wickedness 
of  mankind  ever  since  the  golden  age. 

"But  lo,  with  startled  step  and  savage  look 
Comes  Nero.     What  he  plans  I  dread  to  hear." 

The  despot  as  he  enters  is  uttering  an  order  for  execu- 
tions. 

Seneca  in  single  lines  preaches  mercy. 

Seneca :  Rashly  to  harm  our  neighbors  is  unseemly. 

Nero  :  Easily  is  he  just  who  hath  no  fears. 

Seneca :  A  mighty  cure  for  fright  is  clemency. 

Nero  :  A  king's  chief  merit  is  to  slay  his  foes. 

Seneca :  A  greater  is  to  save  the  citizens. 

Nero :  By  gentle  old  men  children  should  be  trained. 

Seneca :  Rather  should  eager  youth  be  ruled  by  them. 

Nero  :  My  present  age,  methinks,  is  wise  enough. 

The  emperor  presently  announces  that  he  will  divorce  Oc- 
tavia, and  marry  her  favored  rival. 


248  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER    LATIN 

This  scene  is  the  calmest  in  the  play.  Later,  the  angry 
ghost  of  Nero's  mother  rises  to  curse  him  and  his.  The 
new  queen,  Poppaea,  appears,  with  her  own  nurse,  con- 
fidante, and  even  a  rival  chorus.  The  people  are  reported 
as  rising  in  Octavia's  favor,  but  this  only  draws  from  Nero 
the  order  for  her  banishment  to  a  lonely  island  and  her 
prompt  execution  there. 

The  plot  follows  closely  the  tradition  of  the  real  events. 
There  is  action  enough,  and  some  sympathy  for  Octavia  is 
aroused.  The  style,  though  over-rhetorical,  is  sufficiently 
clear  and  rapid.  The  various  metrical  forms  of  Greek 
tragedy  are  very  fairly  imitated. 

The  speeches  and  choral  odes  are  extremely  long,  and  in 
general  the  play  is  declamatory.  Its  fatal  defect  is  the 
utter  lack  of  any  noble  action  or  character,  any  large 
poetic  beauty,  to  reward  us  for  enduring  its  harrowing 
scenes.  Yet  it  is  better  than  we  should  expect.  This  is 
the  one  surviving  example  in  Latin  of  the  prcetexta  or 
native  tragedy.  We  do  not  know  that  it  was  ever  played, 
though  it  could  perfectly  well  be  performed. 

Agrippina's  wraith  prophesies  her  son's  "  shameful 
flight,"  and  adds  : 

"  The  day  shall  come  when  he  repays  his  crimes 
With  forfeit  life,  offers  his  throat  to  foes, 
Deserted,  overthrown,  bereft  of  all. " 

These  definite  touches  make  clear  that  the  play,  or  cer- 
tainly this  scene,  was  written  after  Nero's  death.  This  is 
the  chief  and  evidently  the  sufficient  objection  to  accept- 
ing it  as  Seneca's  work. 

It  is  impossible  to  discuss  in  detail  the  nine  other 
tragedies,  which  are  all  on  Greek  themes.  In  most 
cases  we  have  extant  Attic  dramas  on  the  same  subjects, 
and  the  comparison  is  disastrous  to  the  Latin  works. 
Yet  they  are  not  servile    copies,  nor   are  they  lacking 


SENECA  249 

iu  power.  Everything  else,  however,  seems  sacrificed  to 
the  creation  of  long  declamatory  harangues.  Of  char- 
acter-study, of  jDoetic  atmosphere,  there  is  little  indeed. 
The  authorship  of  Seneca  seems  fully  defended  by  the 
many  close  parallels  with  his  prose  works,  especially 
the  nuggets  of  Stoic  philosophy  on  fate,  resignation, 
nedea,  vss.  suicidc,   and  other  favorite  themes.      Even 

looi-ip.  Seneca's  peculiar  trick  of  elaborated  brevity 

Horace,  de  Arte  ,  tvt      i  •  i 

Poetica,    vs.     reappears  here.     JNothmg   that  can  harrow 
«8s-  our  feelings  is  neglected.    Medea  even  breaks 

Horace's  explicit  command,  and  slays  her  children  before 
our  eyes. 

The  ''Hercules  Mad,"  and  the  "Medea,"  imitate  the 
plots  of  Euripides.  The  "  Phaedra "  follows  rather  his 
first  draught  of  the  "Hippolytos"  than  our  extant  play, 
in  which  the  Attic  poet  removed  the  coarser  traits  of 
Phaedra's  character,  and  made  a  scapegoat  of  her  nurse. 
The  "Trojan  Women"  utilizes  parts  of  the  Enripidean 
play  of  the  same  name,  but  also  of  the  "  Hecuba."  The 
"(Edipus  Rex"  of  Sophocles,  the  "Agamemnon"  of  Ais- 
chylos,  are  no  less  clearly  Seneca's  originals.  The  long 
"Hercules  on  Mount  CEta"  overruns  the  limits  of  Soph- 
ocles's  "  Trachinians."  The  horrible  myth  of  Thyestes,  be- 
guiled into  devouring  his  children's  flesh,  is  not  treated  in 
any  extant  Greek  play,  and  few  will  care  to  study  it  here. 
The  "  Phoenissge,"  finally,  is  a  mere  pair  of  fragments  which 
could  hardly  have  been  included  in  one  play,  and  may  well 
be  mere  studies,  never  completed.  The  purest  heroine  of 
Attic  drama,  Antigone,  appears  in  both  :  sadly  travestied, 
though  with  the  best  intent. 

These  plays,  also,  could  be  put  upon  the  stage.  The 
division  into  five  acts,  the  indication  of  the  scene,  the  limi- 
tation to  three  speakers,  are  fairly  observed.  But  the 
popular  taste  under  Nero  would  infinitely  prefer  a  mime, 
not  to  mention  a  procession,  a  circus,  or  a  gladiatorial  con- 


250  THE  AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

test.  A  small  obsequious  circle  of  the  court  may  have  ap- 
plauded them,  in  the  days  before  Seneca's  headlong  fall 
from  favor.  In  later  Latin  literature,  but  especially  in 
Kacine  or  Corneille,  their  influence  is  seen.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  our  age  will  never  revive  them. 

The  silence  of  Quintilian  as  to  Seneca's  tragedies  is  cer- 
tainly remarkable,  as  he  seems  to  be  giving  something  like 
Quintilian,  X.,  I.,  a  hasty  resume  of  his  various  labors:  "He 

S  '*^-  treated  nearly  every  form  of  literary  mate- 

rial, for  orations,  poems,  letters,  and  dialogues  of  his  are 
in  circulation."  It  may  be  just  possible  that  the  dramas 
are  curtly  included  under  ''poems,"  or  that  they  were  not 
precisely  "in  circulation"  (feruntur).  Yet  a  distinct 
mention  of  them  here  would  give  the  final  assurance,  which 
is  still  lacking,  of  their  authenticity. 

That  tragedies  were  still  acted  in  public  we  know,  chiefly 
from  the  curious  fortunes  of  Pomponius  Secundus,  who  is 
o  I  til    X    1       warmly  praised  by  Quintilian,  and  no  less  by 

§98.  Tacitus.     The  latter  assures  him  of  lasting 

Tacitus,  Annaies,  fame   f or  his  dramas,  rather  than  for   his 

*  "^  *  notable  victory  and  triumph  over  the  Ger- 

man Chatti.  Popular  insolence  to  this  noble  author,  and 
to  eminent  ladies,  in  the  theatre,  was  the  occasion  for  se- 
Tacitus,  Annaies,  vcre  cdicts  issucd  by  Claudius.     Yet  of  his 

xi.,  13-  patriotic  drama  "^neas"  the  name  is  barely 

rescued  for  us,  while  as  to  plays  on  Greek  themes,  written 
by  Pomponius,  even  the  titles  are  questioned.  Some  read- 
ers may  be  consoled  for  this  loss  by  the  statement  that  he, 
like  Seneca,  often  devoted  his  prologues  to  the  discussion 
of  burning  questions  in  propriety  of  diction. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Seneca  is  "  easy"  reading  in  Latin,  and  usually  requires  little  anno- 
tation. The  Teubner  text  in  three  volumes  should  be  much  more  gen- 
erally perused.     Here  may  also  be  read  the  brief  feeble  and  clearly 


SENECA  251 

spurious  correspondence  of  Paul  and  Seneca.  (Vol.  III.,  pp.  476- 
81.)  The  tragedies  are  edited  separately,  in  most  scholarly  fasliion,  by 
Leo.  The  careful  judgment  on  Seneca  by  Quintilian  is  a  masterpiece 
of  literary  criticism. 

The  recent  translation  in  the  Bohn  Library  is  carefully  done,  but  is 
incomplete.  The  satire  on  Claudius's  death  has  just  been  translated 
and  edited,  both  excellently,  by  Bali  in  the  Columbia  University  publi- 
cations. Two  of  the  tragedies,  Medea  and  Troades,  have  recently  been 
translated  with  vigor,  accuracy,  and  taste,  in  verse,  by  Ella  I.  Harris 
(Houghton).  Quite  interesting  is  an  early  essay  by  Canon  Far- 
rar,  which  occupies  the  greater  part  of  the  volume  called  "  Seekers 
after  God,"  where  it  is  combined  with  briefer  studies  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  and  Epictetus. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

CONTEMPORARIES  OF  SENECA 

Compared  with  this  large  and  typical  career,  all  the 
other  authors  of  the  time  are  minor  figures.  As  to  the  liter- 
ary work  of  the  rulers  we  need  hardly  say  a  word,  though 
Claudius  was  a  devoted  student  and  voluminous  historian, 
who  should  never  have  been  dragged  from  his  books  into 
the  pitiless  light  that  beats  upon  a  throne.  He  even  made 
a  pedantic  attempt  to  reform  the  Latin  alphabet.  His 
works  have  all  perished,  save  a  few  inscriptions. 

Claudius's  father,  the  beloved  Germanicus,  has  left  us  a 
metrical  rendering  of  Aratos's  Astronomy.  It  is  a  distinct 
improvement  on  Cicero's  version.  The  boldest  change  is 
the  omission  of  the  dedication  to  Zeus,  for  whom  is  sub- 
stituted the  emperor,  Tiberius. 

The  curious  prominence  of  this  subject  in  decadent 
Latin  literature  can  be  easily  explained.  The  belief  in  the 
reading  of  the  future  in  the  stars  had  outlasted  nearly 
every  other  form  of  living  faith  or  superstition  among  the 
cultivated  classes.  Indeed,  "  tampering  with  the  astrolo- 
gers "  was  one  of  the  commonest  charges  made  by  the  in- 
formers, since  the  plots  against  the  emperor's  life  were 
believed  to  be  oftenest  hidden  under  supposed  prophecies. 
The  capital  was  thronged  with  as  many  seers,  astrologers, 
mages,  of  real  or  pretended  Oriental  birth,  as  it  deserved. 

In  this  age  begins  the  systematic  editing  and  annotating 
of  those  greater  Latin  authors  who  were  already  regarded 
as  classics.  In  particular,  M,  Valerius  Probus  prepared 
careful  editions,  and  biographies,  of  Terence,  Lucretius, 
Virgil,  Horace,  and  even   of  his  contemporary,  Persius. 

252 


CONTEMPORAKIES    OF   SENECA  353 

There  is  extant  only  a  brief  but  useful  monograph  of  his 
on  abbreviations,  use  of  initial  letters,  etc.  Asconius  also 
made  extended  commentaries,  based  upon  thorough  his- 
torical study.  On  five  Ciceronian  speeches  he  still  affords 
material  aid.  Caesius  Bassus,  a  poet  whose  verses  are  lost, 
left  a  treatise  on  metres,  from  which  there  are  valuable 
fragments.  Such  secondary  work  indicates  the  conscious- 
ness that  the  creative  age  is  closing.  Pomponius  Mela, 
writing  in  Claudius's  reign,  is  the  author  of  our  oldest 
Latin  treatise  on  geography,  in  three  books.  He  complains, 
like  Cicero  before  him,  that  the  material 
resists  rhetorical  treatment. 

More  important  than  any  of  these  is  Columella,  a  Spaniard 
like  Seneca,  a  native  of  Cadiz,  who  under  Nero,  in  ad- 
vanced years,  wrote  his  truly  encyclopsedic  work  on  Agri- 
culture, in  twelve  books.  The  tenth,  on  gardening,  is 
composed  as  a  filial  tribute  to  Virgil's  genius,  in  accurate 
but  uninspired  hexameter  verses.  The  rest  is  prose. 
Though  cumbrous  in  plan,  this  voluminous  work  is  a  store- 
house of  information. 

The  chief  historical  essay  preserved  is  Quintus  Curtius's 
biography  of  Alexander  the  Great.  This  was  apparently 
composed  in  Claudius's  time,  judging  from  a  passage  in 
which  that  emperor's  accession  seems  to  be  described. 
Nothing  is  known  of  the  author.  The  style  is  extremely 
pleasing.  In  his  choice  of  scenes  and  subjects  to  present 
in  detail  Curtius  is  really  artistic.  As  an  historical  docu- 
ment, the  work  is  inferior  to  Arrian's  somewhat  later  ac- 
count in  Greek.  Of  the  ten  books,  only  eight,  III.-X.,  re- 
main, somewhat  tattered. 

All  these  prose  works  indicate  a  prudent  effort  to  select 
subjects  so  remote,  colorless,  or  pacific  that  they  cannot 
possibly  be  displeasing  even  to  the  most  jealous  imperial 
censorship.  The  next  in  our  list,  however,  is  nowise  lack- 
ing in  audacity,  or  in  contemporary  coloring. 


254  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 


PETRONIUS 


The  title  "Satires  of  Petronins"  really  covers  a  single 
tale  of  travel  and  picaresque  adventure,  of  the  general  type 
"best  known  to  us  through  "  Gil  Bias,"  or,  perhaps,  "  Tom 
Jones."  No  modern  author,  however,  would  be  permitted 
even  to  hint  at  actions  and  scenes  such  as  are  here  fully 
delineated.  From  the  romance  in  at  least  twenty  books 
we  have  only  meagre  fragments,  the  chief  of  which  de- 
scribes a  banquet  given  by  a  rich  upstart,  Trimalchio,  and 
his  equally  vulgar  wife,  Fortunata.  In  all  Latin  litera- 
ture there  is  nothing  approaching  the  dramatic  vividness, 
the  wit,  the  uproarious  mirthfulness,  of  this  episode. 

The  youth  Eucolpios,  Avho  is  recording  his  experiences, 
though  a  freedman,  is  liberally  educated,  and  uses  the 
ornate  Latin  of  the  day,  somewhat  colored  by  poetic 
phrases  and  Greek  words.  Much  of  the  talk  among  the 
guests  is  in  the  vulgar  speech,  full  of  racy  old  Latin 
idioms,  or,  again,  of  the  latest  slang.  The  tasteless  splendor 
of  the  palace,  the  boastful  hospitality  of  the  hosts,  the 
elaborate  surprises  provided  for  the  guests  as  each  course 
is  served  in  most  novel  fashion,  all  make  up  an  indescribable 
medley.  It  is  clear,  meantime,  that  all  this  wasteful  con- 
fusion and  babel  is  being  set  forth  by  a  consummate  art- 
ist, tolerant  of  all  human  weakness,  deft  and  light  even 
in  his  scorn,  not  unaware  of  the  disdain  with  which  a  more 
reticent  age  must  view  both  his  pictures  and  himself.  By 
many  a  quiet  yet  deadly  stroke  he  seems  in  Trimalchio 
to  be  pillorying  and  immortalizing  some  real  and  hated 
parvenu. 

The  other  fragments  suffice  to  show  that  this  scene  was 
one  of  the  relatively  decent  episodes  of  the  entire  work. 
On  the  whole  we  hardly  know  whether  to  deplore  or  rejoice 
over  the  loss  of  what  may  well  have  been  the  most  vivid 
and  merciless  picture  of  debased  humanity  ever  painted. 


CONTJ,MPOIlARIES    OF    SENECA  255 

A  character  who  appears  rather  late  is  a  pretentions  old 
poet,  Eumolpos.  Among  the  verses  which  he  enables  the 
satirist  to  introduce  freely  is  a  "Sack  of  Troy"  in  sixty- 
five  hexameters,  and  a  poem  on  the  civil  wars  in  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-five  verses.  Despite  an  occasional  roguish 
Virgilian  parody  or  other  lapse  from  dignity,  these  poems 
show  more  talent  than  most  of  the  serious  epic  writing  of 
the  century.  The  overt  intent  to  deride  seems  here  again 
clear.  The  exact  application  of  the  artist's  gibes  can 
probably  be  pointed  out. 

Among  the  poetic  attempts  of  Nero  which  have  a  promi- 
nent share  in  the  tradition  of  his  mad  rule  was  a  Trojan 
epic  :  recited,  so  runs  the  tale,  while  Rome  was  burning. 
As  to  Xero's  boon-companion,  poetic  rival,  and  short-lived 
victim,  Lucan,  with  the  account  of  the  civil  wars  in  his 
"  Pharsalia,"  we  shall  speak  elsewhere.  Va- 
rious allusions  to  real  persons  indicate  that 
Petronius's  scene,  and  the  author's  actual  life,  are  cast  in 
Nero's  days. 

Finally,  near  the  close  of  Tacitus's  annals,  is  found  one 

of  his  most  masterly  character-sketches.    Petronius  Arbiter, 

equally  famous  for  his  gallantry  and  execu- 

Annales,xvi..i8.      }         ■!  .  .^        ^        i- 

tive  ability  in  active  hie,  for  his  extrava- 
gant ingenuity  in  debauchery,  and  for  his  fearless,  refined, 
and  caustic  wit,  attained  a  dangerous  eminence,  and  won 
his  surname,  in  Nero's  inmost  circle,  as  Arbiter  eleganti- 
arum,  or  final  referee  on  all  points  of  taste  in  genteel  dissi- 
pation. Undermined  by  the  deadly  jealousy  of  Nero's 
most  shameless  favorite  Tigellinus,  Petronius,  amid  light- 
hearted  banter,  opened  his  own  veins  and  ended  his  life, 
having  first  sent  to  the  emperor — not,  like  other  victims, 
a  humble  confession  and  bequest  of  his  wealth,  but — a 
deadly  arraignment,  including  a  list  of  all  the  men  and 
women  whom  the  tyrant's  greed,  passion,  or  suspicion  had 
destroved. 


256  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   lATIN" 

The  notion  that  our  romance  was  the  document  just  men- 
tioned is  almost  too  absurd  to  repeat.  That  "  Trimalchio  " 
was  in  detail  an  unmistakable  portrait  of  Tigellinus  is  not 
improbable,  and  would  alone  suffice  to  explain  the  murder- 
ous hatred  of  the  favorite  for  his  satirist. 


LATIN   ILIAD 

With  this  Menippean  or  Rabelaisian  satire  we  have  passed 
the  line,  no  longer  well-defined,  between  prose  and  verse. 
Almost  a  parody  also,  in  its  brevity,  freedom,  and  inade- 
quacy, is  the  version  based  on  Homer  and  called  the  "Lat- 
in Iliad."  We  must  not  suppose  that  Andronicus's  ar- 
chaic "  Odyssey  "  had  waited  so  long  for  a 
pendant.  Indeed,  several  earlier  translations 
are  mentioned.  In  the  form  transmitted  to  us  these  ten 
hundred  and  seventy  hexameters  date  from  the  Julian  dy- 
nasty. The  passage  which  makes  this  assured  is  itself  a  bold 
embroidery  of  the  original. 

"  Had  not  the  lord  of  the  wide  sea- waters  rescued  ^neas, 
Destined,  an  exile,  Troy  to  restore  in  a  happier  region,  .    .    . 
Then  would  the  rise  of    a  well-loved  dynasty  never  have 
happened. " 

Ascribed  with  incredible  ignorance  to  Homer,  or,  yet  more 
strangely,  to  Pindar,  this  jDerformance  long  maintained 
itself  as  a  mediaeval  text-book. 


CALPURNIUS 

An  imitator  of  Virgil's  Bucolics,  without  his  genius  or 
fresh  charm,  is  T.  Calpurnius  Piso.  Of  his  seven  pasto- 
rals, several  use  this  form  merely  to  eulogize  a  young,  beau- 
tiful, and  poetic  living  emperor.  These  and  numerous 
other  allusions,  not  excepting  the  announcement  of  an  in 


CONTEMPORARIES   OF  SENECA  257 

coming  golden  age,  point  to  the  first  years  of  Nero's  rule. 
The  four  poems  formerly  added  to  these  seven,  in  MSS. 
and  editions,  are  still  remoter  echoes  of  an  echo,  to  be 
credited  to  the  late  versifier  Kemesianus. 

Perhaps  connected  with  these  seven  poems  is  a  Panegy- 
ric on  Calpurnius  Piso,  clearly  the  man  who  was  consul 
Tacitus,  Anna-  Under  Nero,  but  in  65  a.d.  lost  his  life  as 
les,  XV.,  48.  a  conspirator  against  his  master.  The  eulo- 
gist describes  himself  as  a  poor  youth.  It  has  been  per- 
haps too  ingeniously  suggested,  that  he  may  have  been 
adopted  into  the  gens  of  his  patron  and  so  bore  his  name. 

PERSIUS 
34-62  A.D. 

Possibly  it  is  the  general  barrenness  or  silence  of  his  time 
that  has  aided  the  shrill,  piercing  cry  of  young  Persius  to 
reach  so  far  across  the  centuries.  He  is  aware  that  he  is 
no  true  singer.  Originality,  in  substance  or  style,  will 
hardly  be  claimed  for  him.  His  manner  is  a  painful  dis- 
tortion of  Horace's,  and  he  lashes,  more  fiercely  and  intol- 
erantly, much  the  same  follies  or  sins.  He  may  have  been 
also  heavily  indebted  to  Lucilius.  He  offers  us  altogether 
only  six  hundred  and  fifty  hexameters,  to  which  the  Epi- 
logue, if  authentic,  adds  fourteen  "limping"  iambic  verses. 
Yet  in  the  peculiarly  Eoman  field  of  satire  he  is  usually 
counted  as  a  creditable  third.  Lucan,  Quintilian,  Martial, 
promptly  unite  in  hearty  praise  of  Persius.  Later  antiquity, 
and  the  Middle  Ages,  kept  his  influence  alive.  In  his  mod- 
ern editors,  even  down  to  the  days  of  Conington  and  Gil- 
dersleeve,  he  has  been  most  fortunate. 

What  is  his  charm  ?  To  be  perfectly  truthful,  most 
men  do  not  discover  it  at  all,  and  are  almost  tempted  to 
wonder  if  his  admirers  find  it  in  his  obscurity  itself. 
Through  that  obscurity,  which  makes  him  almost  incohe- 


258  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER  LATIN 

rent,  is  heard  the  fierce  sincerity  of  youth.  He  preaches 
pure  Stoic  dogmas,  amid  a  shameless  and  vicious  Avorld. 
But  it  is  a  world  which  he  does  not  really  know,  as  Juvenal, 
for  instance,  does,  and  his  doctrines  are  but  the  orthodox 
and  thrice-familiar  maxims  of  his  mentors. 

It  is  most  pleasing  when  the  tired  youth  recalls  his  boy- 
ish attempts  to  escape  his  taskmasters,  in  the  days  when 

"  I  did  not  wish 
To  learn  by  heart  the  dying  Cato's  words  : 
Which  my  daft  tutor,  though,  would  loud  applaud, 
And  with  a  glow  of  pride  my  father  heard, 
When  I  declaimed  to  his  assembled  friends. " 

Even  in  so  brief  a  career  may  be  seen  some  progress  toward 
clear  and  natural  expression.  Amid  some  of  the  most  wil- 
ful of  his  figures,  like  the  "  mere  plaster  of  a  varnished 
tongue,"  one  may  cull  such  tender  lines  as  these  to  his 
instructor  : 

* '  It  is  my  joy  to  show,  O  sweet  my  friend. 
To  you,  how  large  a  part  of  me  is  yours. 

A  hundred  voices  I  might  dare  to  crave, 
That  I  in  clearest  utterance  might  reveal 
How  in  my  heart's  recesses  you  are  fixt." 

Yet,  even  if  we  had  only  Latin  poets  to  touch  the  harp- 
strings  of  the  soul,  it  would  still  be  not  Persius  but  Catul- 
lus who  strikes  with  full  mastery  the  note  of 
friendship  or  gratitude. 
The  only  other  surviving  poet  of  Nero's  day,  Lucan, 
must  open  a  new  chapter. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  minor  authors  here  mentioned  may  be  passed  over  lightly  by 
the  young  student.  "Trimalchio"  has  lately  been  introduced  into 
good  society  through  an  illustrated  translation  and  essay  by  Professor 
H.  T.   Peck.     This  is  quite  enoug     of  Petronius  for  any  save  the 


CONTEMPORAKIES   OF  SENECA  259 

learned  specialist.  The  far  more  respectable  Columella  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  edited,  nor  translated  into  English  or  German, 
since  the  eighteenth  century.  Calpurnius's  pastorals,  the  eulogy  on 
Piso,  and  the  "  Latin  Iliad  "  may  be  read  conveniently  in  Biihrens's 
"Poeta;  Latini  Minores."  Persius  is  most  skilfully  rendered  in  prose 
by  Professor  Conington,  whose  edition  has  since  been  improved  by 
Nettleship,  In  Professor  Gildersleeve's  edition  there  is  a  close  study 
of  the  linguistic  perversities. 


CHAPTER   XXX 
THE  EPIC  POETRY 

From  the  first  century  a.d.  we  have  the  works  of  four 
poets,  who  must  be  classified  as  epic.  By  evident  imita- 
tion, or  even  by  explicit  tributes,  like 
Statius's,  they  reveal  their  consciousness  of 
Virgil's  supremacy.  They  all  show,  in  varying  degree,  a 
careful  effort  in  hexameter  versification,  full  knowledge  of 
historical  incident  or  mythical  tradition,  and  power  of 
vivid  portrayal.  They  have  had  comparatively  little  influ- 
ence or  importance  in  the  general  story  of  European  lit- 
erature, and  their  relative  value  will  never  increase. 

This  may  not  be  due  chiefly  to  the  depressing  effect  of 
a  Tiberius,  or  a  Domitian,  on  individual  genius.  The 
Roman  or  Latin  type  of  man  had  accomplished  his  mission, 
chiefly  one  of  aggressive  action  and  organization.  He  was 
hardly  holding  his  past  conquests.  National  pride  could 
no  longer  spur  to  such  heroic  exploits  in  war  or  peace  as 
the  epic  poet  celebrates.  Rome  was  indeed  rather  cosmo- 
politan than  national :  but  humanity  itself  seemed  for  the 
time  to  have  no  inspiring  ideals,  no  goal  of  action,  save 
Stoical  endurance,  or  Epicurean  indulgence. 

LUCAN 

(39-65  A.D.) 

In  no  epoch,  even  of  Roman  imperialism,  does  human 
existence  seem  so  like  a  mad  maelstrom,  as  in  the  latter 
years  of  Nero's  reign.  Few  lives  could  better  illustrate  the 
swift  and  utter  shipwreck  of  a  brilliant  career  than  Lu- 

260 


THE   EPIC    POETRY  261 

can's.  Marcus  Annaeus  Lucanns,  the  nepliew  of  Seneca, 
naturally  became  from  boyhood  the  personal  intimate  of 
^    ,  „  Nero.     At  the  first  Neronia, — athletic  and 

oo  A.D, 

musical  contests  in  the  young  ruler's  honor, 
— Lucan  delivered  a  panegyric  on  his  master,  to  whom  the 
first  prizes  in  music  and  eloquence  were  assigned  without 
competition.  As  a  poet  Nero  was  no  less  imperiously 
ambitious.     Whether  the  verses  ascribed  to  him  were  really 

Suetonius,  Nero,   ^^^^  ^^^'  ^^  Contributed  by  various  obsequious 

$  sa.  courtiers,  is  a  point  on  which  Suetonius  and 

Tacitus,  Annates,  Tacitus,    our   chief   authorities,   apparently 

disagree. 

The  horrors  of  Nero's  later  reign  began  about  this  time 

^  Q  with  the  assassination  of  his  mother,  Agrip- 

pina,  and  the  death,  probably  the  murder,  of 

*^  A.D.  the  sturdy  prefect.  Burr  us,  who  had  dared  to 

say,  "  If  you  insist  on  divorcing  Claudius's 

daughter,  at  least  give  back  first  her  dowry:  the  empire." 

Whether  such  a  tyrant  showed  active  jealousy  or  cold 

indifference  to  Lucan's  popular  recitations  and  rising  fame, 

is  again  disputable.     One  may  well  have  been  the  mask  of 

the  other.     That  the  young  poet,  forbidden  to  read  again 

in  public,  was  bitterly  enraged,  and  at  last  actually  drawn 

into  Piso's  plot,  is  more  easily  believed  than 

his   uncle's   complicity    in    the    same    mad 

scheme.     Lucan  took,  indeed,  a  most  prominent  and  open 

part.     Yet  when   the   exposure   came,    he   made   frantic 

efforts  to  save  his  forfeited  life,  even  denouncing  as  a  con- 

Suetonius,  Life     spirator   his  innocent  mother,   in  the  hope 

oi  Lucan.  ^hat  this  would  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of 

a  matricide  ! 

Lucan's  extant  "  Pharsalia,"  or  ''  De  Bello  Civili,"  an 
^    epic  account  of  the  civil  war  between  Pompev 

Phars.,!.,  33-36.  ,  ^  ^  ^ 

and  Caesar,  seems  consistent  with  this  strange 
biography.     The  first  book   contains  a  passage  of   most 


262  THE  AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

fulsome  adulation  on  the  young  emperor.  In  the  later 
portions  hatred  of  tyranny  is  more  and  more  boldly  ex- 
pressed. The  first  three  books  of  the  epic, 
begun  in  60  A.D.,  had  been  published  with 
Nero's  approval  :  the  other  seven  were  found  in  MS.  after 
the  author's  death. 

It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  Lucan's  preference  for 
Pompey,  his  aversion  for  the  great  Julius  as  the  author  of 
all  the  subsequent  evils  of  Rome,  is  clearly  shown  from  the 
first,  though  far  more  fiercely  and  boldly  expressed  in  later 
passages.  Lucan  is  no  less  incensed,  moreover,  with  the 
divine  government  of  the  world.  It  is  a  correct  instinct 
that  has  preserved  in  the  popular  mind  his  one  most 
audacious,  perhaps  impious,  but  magnificent  verse  : 

"Dearer  the  victor's  cause  to  the  gods:  but  to  Cato  the 
vanquished." 

The  great  length  and  prominence  of  the  speeches  marks 
the  declamatory  taste  of  the  age  and  of  the  poet.  Cicero 
is  even  introduced,  before  the  battle,  urging  Pompey  to 
vigorous  action  by  a  long  harangue  which  he  certainly 
never  delivered.  Lucan  sees  nothing  good  in  Caesar,  little 
save  the  noblest  heroic  qualities  in  Pompey,  We  cannot, 
then,  regard  the  poet  as  a  safe  witness,  even,  to  the  facts 
of  recent  history.  Fair-minded  Livy  had  been  called  a 
*'  Pompeian  "  in  half-serious  banter  ;  but  we  may  be  sure 
Lucan's  account  is  no  true  reflection  of  the  historian's  lost 
books. 

This  crude  passionate  young  poet  has  some  exceptional 
powers,  but  they  are  chiefly  employed  in  strenuous  special 
pleading  for  a  bad  political  cause,  or  in  the  lurid  descrip- 
tion of  horrors,  on  desert  march  or  battlefield,  or  even  in 
remote  digressions  into  myth  and  earlier  his- 
tory. Quintilian  well  calls  him  "  a  model 
for  orators  rather  than  for  poets." 


THE   EPIC    POETRY  263 

SILIUS    ITALICUS 
(26-101  A.D.) 

Very  different  was  the  long  career  of  Silius  Italicns, 
which  is  sufficiently  outlined,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  by 
a  letter  from  the  younger  Pliny.     Though 
^'     "   '        high  in  office,  and  even  notorious  as  an  in- 
former {delator)   at   the  end  of  Nero's  career,  he  safely 
outlived  all  the  three  Flavian  emperors,  acquired  eagerly 
vast  estates  in  Campania,  which  included  a 
a  la ,  X .,     .    £^j,jj^gy  Y\][^  of  Cicero  and  the  bnrial-place 

of  Virgil — and  ended  his  own  life  voluntarily  and  cheerily 
at  last  by  starvation,  to  escape  an  incurable  disease.  The 
most  gracious  act  recorded  of  him  is  that  he  habitually 
celebrated  Virgil's  birthday  far  more  elaborately  than  his 
own,  usually  making  a  pilgrimage  to  his  tomb  at  Naples 
as  if  to  a  shrine.  There  is  a  hint  of  weariness  in  Pliny's 
courteous  words  :  "  He  composed  verses  with  more  energy 
than  genius.  Sometimes  he  tested  men's  opinions  of  them 
by  recitations." 

The  chief  result  of  this  energy  is  extant,  in  over  twelve 
thousand  lines  on  the  struggle  between  Carthage  and 
Rome.  Though  the  seventeen  books  may  seem  a  rather 
wilful  number,  the  tale  is  clearly  completed,  with  the  vic- 
tory of  Zama  and  the  triumphant  home  return  of  Scipio. 

To  the  traditional  Roman  annals  Silius  has  carefully 
added  at  every  stage  the  Olympian  machinery,  Juno  espe- 
cially guiding  the  Carthaginians,  Venus  aiding  the  de- 
scendants of  her  beloved  iEneas.  We  find  little  indeed 
of  true  and  original  poetry,  not  even  the  audacity  and 
glaring  faults  of  Lucan  ;  but  at  every  turn  servile  imitation 
of  earlier  poetry,  above  all  of  the  Jilneid,  and,  through  it, 
of   the   Homeric  poems.     Sometimes  these 

xlH-.  395-894.  ,  U1J-11 

echoes  grow  childishly  naive,  or  wearisome, 
as  when  Scipio,  in  defiance  of  all  history  or  tradition. 


264  THE  AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

is  described  as  descending,  like  ^neas,  througli  Avernus  to 
the  under-world,  to  learn  his  high  future  destiny.  Again 
Siiius  ii.,  395-     Hannibal's  shield,  though  but  the  gift  and 

452.  cf . /Cneid,  handiwork  of  mortals,  is  described  almost  as 
smusin^*^  carefully  as  Vulcan's  masterpiece.    A  proph- 

ff.  cf.  /Eneid,    ecy  of  Jiipitcr  to  Venus  as  to  the  future  of 

i.,as7;ni.,6o7.j^Qjj^g  enables  the  poet  to  eulogize  the  Fla- 
vian emperors,  most  of  all  tlie  atrocious  tyrant  Domitian, 
who  was  then  near  his  end.  The  close  of  Book  XIV., 
however,  is  supposed  to  allude  to  Nerva  as  him  "  who  now 
hath  given  peace  unto  the  world." 

This  patriotic  and  martial  subject  is  one  which  had  once 
appealed  mightily  to  Roman  pride,  having  been  treated  by 
Supra,  pp.  26       NsBvius,  and  by  Ennius  also,  at  the  very  be- 

and34.  ginning  of  literary  activity  in  Latium.     It 

will  serve  as  a  reminder,  Avhich  may  well  be  needed,  that 
this  is  still  the  race  and  land  of  the  Scipios,  the  Fabii,  and 
the  Marcelli. 

VALERIUS    FLACCUS 

Distinctly  more  readable,  not  wholly  on  account  of  its 
relative  brevity,  is  Flaccus's,  "  Argonautica,"  now  extant, 
but  not  complete,  in  eight  books.  Of  the  author's  life  hardly 
anything  is  known.  In  his  opening  verses  he  dedicates  his 
poem  cleverly  to  the  reigning  Vespasian,  who  by  his  expe- 
dition to  Britain  has  won  a  higher  fame  than  Jason's  for 
opening  up  alien  seas.  The  emperor's  younger  son  Domi- 
tian had  then  poetic  ambitions,  and  it  is  prophesied  hat 
he  will  glorify  in  verse  his  brother  Titus,  who  is  even  now 
hurling  firebrands  at  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  This  seems 
to  point  clearly  to  70  A.D.,  while  the  later  books,  contain- 
ing repeated  allusions  to  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  must 
be  composed  after  79.     Quintilian,  writing 

Quint.  x.,i.,  90.        ,         ,      ^.  .  ,  . 

about    90   A.D.,    expresses   regret    over    his 
friend's  recent  death.     Whether  the  poem  was  left  unfin- 


ROMAN    SOLDIERS    CARRYING    THE    GOLDEJS'    CANDLESTICK    FROM 

THE   TEMPLE    AT    JERUSALEM. 

Relief  from  tlio  arch  of  Titus. 


THE  EPIC   POETRY  265 

ished,  or  is  merely  mntilated  in  the  MSS.,  is  still  debated. 
It  breaks  off  at  a  critical  pointy,  when  Medea's  brother  has 
just  overtaken  the  fleeing  Argonauts,  and  a  sea-fight  is  in 
immediate  prospect. 

This  work  must  be  studied,  if  at  all,  in  connection  with 
the  Greek  "  Argonautica"  of  the  Alexandrian  poet  Apol- 
lonios  Rhodios,  which  had  been  rendered,  apparently  with 
fidelity,  into  Latin  also.  Though  less  graceful  in  the  details 
of  style,  the  Roman  poet  often  imj)roves  on  his  model  in 
plot,  succeeding,  in  particular,  in  giving  to  Jason  far  more 
action  such  as  befits  a  commander  and  hero-in-chief.  Yet 
William  Morris's  "Life  and  Death  of  Jason"  may  outlive 
both  the  classic  poems.  A  phrase  of  Homer,  mentioning 
the  "Argo,  to  all  men  familiar,"  gives  us  the  impression 
that  this  subject  was  rather  hackneyed  even  in  his  day. 
The  three  poems  here  mentioned,  not  to  speak  of  others  in 
a  hundred  languages,  may  remind  us  how  perennial  is  the 
vitality  of  the  great  Hellenic  myths. 

STATIUS 
45-96  A.D.(?). 

Though  spent  wholly  under  the  terrible  Domitian,  this 
is  a  real  literary  career.  Statins  appears  to  have  been  not 
merely  by  profession  but  by  inheritance  a  scholar  and  a 
siivse,  v.,  3.  poet.  His  father  is  most  filially  described  as 
the  master  of  a  flourishing  school  of  litera- 
ture and  rhetoric  in  Naples.  There  the  youth  from  many 
Italian  lands  not  only  conned  their  Homer, 

"  Learning  how  Ilium  fell,  or  the  long  delay  of  Ulysses," 

but  mastered  every  notable  Greek  poet,  from  the  "  old 
Ascrsean,"  Hesiod,  to  Sophron  the  mime,  or  the  learned 
Alexandrians.  This  father  himself  sang  the  burning  of 
the  capital  in  69  a.d.,  and,  as  Dante  says  of  the  son,  on 


266  THE   AGE  OF   SILVER  LATIN 

the  way  sank  with  a  second  burden,  also  of  contemporary 
interest,  viz.,  the  eruption  of  Vesnvins  in  79.  It  was 
under  this  paternal  advice  and  counsel  that  the  son,  Pub- 
lius  Papinius  Statins,  toiled  for  twelve  years  on  his  pon- 
derous, learned,  rhetorical,  unreadable  mas- 

80-93  (?)  A.D.  •  - 1        mi      U    •  J 

terpiece,  the  Thebaid. 

The  subject  had  been  treated  in  early  Greek  epic,  not 
in  one  poem,  but  in  three.  So  Aischylos  wrought  the  tale 
of  Laios,  of  Oidipus,  and  of  his  quarrelling  sons,  into  three 
tragedies,  linked  together  by  the  hereditary  curse.  Soph- 
ocles in  "Antigone"  and  either  "Oidipus,"  Euripides 
or  Koman  Seneca  in  the  "  Phcenissse,"  attempted  single 
episodes  only.  The  subject,  then,  lacked  adequate  unity. 
Even  more  utterly  than  the  Argo's  voyage  did  it  lack,  also, 
any  shadow  of  application  or  vital  interest  for  Statius's  age 
and  land.  Yet  in  that  century,  and  in  others  since,  espe- 
cially while  Greek  was  unknown  in  Western  Europe,  and 
declamatory  rhetoric  could  be  mistaken  for  true  poetry, 
Statius's  epic  was  a  text-book,  and  a  general  favorite. 

The  issue  of  the  single  books  gave  him  fame,  and  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  court  favor.  Martial,  himself  a  needy  ad- 
venturer, pays  Statius  the  eloquent  tribute  of  jealous  silence. 
Juvenal  mentions  the  fashionable  rush  when  the  author's 
readings  from  the  Thebaid  are  posted,  but  adds  sourly  : 

"  Yet  doth  he  starve,    if  he  sell  not  to  Paris   his    virgin 
'Agave.'  " 

This  refers  to  a  commission  to  write  a  mime  for  the  favor- 
ite actor. 

After  a  disappointment,  curiously  like  Tasso's,  a  failure 
to  win  the  poet's  crown  in  a  competitive  contest,  Statius  re- 
tired to  Naples,  and  in  his  last  years  composed  his  Achilleis. 
Though  incomplete,  it  is  a  far  more  adequate  fragment  than, 
e.g.,  Goethe's,  and  also  shows  distinct  advance  toward  true 
poetic  taste.     Indeed,  as  an  idyll,  or  miniature  epic,  his 


THE   EPIC    POETRY  267 

account  of  the  boy  Achilles's  stay  in  Skyros  might  well  be 
perused  again  in  our  colleges.  The  story  of  Odysseus's 
coming,  of  his  detection  of  the  youth  who,  though  dis- 
guised as  a  girl  among  girls,  prefers  arms  to  trinkets  when 
gifts  are  chosen, — all  this  is  clearly  paralleled  in  a  striking 
Pompeian  wall-painting,  which  may  well  be  a  rough 
replica  of  some  great  masterpiece  like  Polygnotos's  in  the 
Athenian  Propylaia.  The  incident,  then,  is  by  no  means 
of  Statius's  invention.  Doubtless,  Sophocles's  lost  "  Sky- 
rians"  set  it  forth  infinitely  better.  But  once  again 
the  chance  of  survival  has  favored  the  coarser  Koman 
copy. 

In  comparison  with  these  labored  works.  Statins  himself 
disdained  his  "  SilvaB "  or  occasional  poems,  thrown  off  in 
haste,  and  at  amazing  speed,  upon  the  demand  of  any 
court  favorite.  Yet  it  is  in  them  that  we  find  him  a  poet. 
The  occasions  are  indeed  often  ignoble.  The  savage  em- 
peror, a  Greek  freedman  of  the  palace,  or  any  other  suc- 
cessful adventurer,  even  a  boy  pet  or  page,  could  set  this 
nimble  quill  in  motion.  A  curious  tree,  a  statue,  a  sump- 
tuous villa,  must  have  its  memorial  verse.  An  elegy  is 
due  for  a  page,  a  parrot,  a  lion.  Statins  is  ready,  per- 
force. 

When  the  favorite  eunuch  orders  verses  on  his  own  curly 
locks,  dedicated  and  sent  to  an  Oriental  shrine.  Statins 
grows  aweary  of  this  mad  world — and  the  next  poem  is  a 
tender  plea  to  his  Koman  wife  to  share  his  retreat  in  saner, 
quieter  Naples.  Of  the  thirty-two  poems  in  the  "Silvae" 
one  might  choose  this,  the  birthday  ode,  in  hendecasyllables, 
for  Lucan's  anniversary,  and  a  pathetic  appeal  of  the  wake- 
ful poet  to  Somnus,  for  an  anthology  of  sincere  and  pure 
Latin  verse.  Yet  the  others  also  abound  in  truthful 
local  color  and  natural  feeling.  Perhaps  the  appeal  to 
Somnus  is  unique  in  its  combination  of  classic  form  and 
imagery  with  a  universal  human  need. 


268  THE  AGE   OF   SILVER  LATIN 

_,,  ^        ^   _  "  Seven  times  hath  Phoebe  looked  on  me 

13.  Languisliing,  and  the  stars  of  eve  and  morn 

Their  lamps  relit :  while  heedless  of  my  pain 
Tithonia  passes  in  half-pitying  scorn, 
Nor  lays  her  cooling  touch  upon  my  brain. 

Were  I  as  Argus,  and  my  thousand  eyes 
Alternate  veiled,  nor  ever  all  awake, 
'Twere  well." 

Every  tired  brain  and  tlirobbing  heart  the  world  over,  to  the 
end  of  time,  can  share  the  hope  that  a  moment's  restful  un- 
consciousness came  swiftly  to  the  eyes  that  could  not  be 

"  Wholly  enfolded  by  Sleep's  downy  wings  : 
This  let  the  vulgar  throng,  more  happy,  crave." 

By  a  curious  fate,  however,  Statius's  best  chance  of  im- 
mortal fame  comes  through  a  bold  fiction  of  a  far  greater 
Italian  poet  a  thousand  years  later.  Most  students  of 
Dante  feel  that  tlie'^  Commedia"  grew  and  widened  with  the 
wandering  exile's  years,  and  is  full  of  happy  afterthoughts. 
Statins  is  not  mentioned  with  the  other  Roman  poets  who 
are  Virgil's   companions  in  Limbo.     Lonsr 

Inferno,  Iv.  .  .  •  1  t^ 

after,  in  composing  the  "  Purgatorio,  Dante 
repairs  the  omission.  But,  if  met  on  the  mountain  of 
purification,  Statins,  according  to  Dante's  creed,  must  have 
been  in  his  lifetime  converted  and  duly  baptized.  There 
is  no  authority  known  for  any  such  statement  :  yet  none 
can  regret  the  passage  where  Statins  assures  Virgil  that 
the  prophetic  words  of  the  Fourth  Eclogue  had  set  him  on 
the  quest  that  led  to  truth  and  salvation. 

"  Thou  didst  as  he  that  walketh  in  the  night, 

''67-6*r'"'  *""■'     ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^'^  ^^S^^*  behind,  which  helps  him 

not, 
But  wary  makes  the  persons  after  him 

.     Through  thee  I  poet  was,  through 
'•*'**••  ^3-  thee  a  Christian. ' ' 


THE   EPIC   POETRY  269 

It  may  at  first  thought  seem  quite  possible,  that  Statius 
was  a  timid  and  secret  convert  to  Christianity.  It  is,  how- 
ever, highly  improbable,  as  was  noted  as  to  Seneca :  and 
there  was  not  even,  in  the  poet's  case,  any  such  late-in- 
vented tradition,  like  the  spurious  correspondence  between 
the  philosopher  and  St.  Paul.  The  "  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans "  appears  to  be  addressed  to  a  little  circle  of  Greeks 
and  of  Jews  who  may  often  have  borne  Greek  names.  Such 
folk  often  attained  in  Eome  the  utmost  influence,  as  we 
have  seen  :  but  whether  slaves  or  freedmen,  their  nominal 
position  was  still  servile,  though  they  might  serve  in 
*^  Caesar's  household,"  and  be  close  to  the  emperor's  ear. 
But  the  haughty  indifference  of  Gallio  is  typical,  for  at 
least  the  first  century,  of  the  Roman  attitude  toward  nearly 
all  Oriental  peoples  and  creeds.  Even  the  famous  persecu- 
tions by  Nero  and  Domitian  may  have  included  the  Chris- 
tians under  the  larger,  far  more  familiar,  and  detested  name 
of  Hebrews.  In  Pliny's  letters  to  Trajan  we  have  for  the 
first  time  a  fairly  intelligent  account  of  the  new  sect.  In 
the  "Commedia"  itself  it  is  remarked,  that  Statius's  epics 
are  full  of  the  Olympian  theology.  We  have  not  the  least 
right  to  imagine  that  Dante  had  before  him  any  recorded 
tradition  of  the  Roman  poet's  conversion. 

EPILOGUE    AND    PROLOGUE 

With  statius  we  are  already  amid  the  last  notable  group 
of  Latin  authors  whom  we  can  fairly  call  classical.  There 
are  at  least  five  literary  men  of  his  generation  who  are 
masters,  each  in  his  own  field  and  style.  At  first  thought 
it  may  seem  contradictory  to  insist  that  such  an  age  of 
letters  is  a  decadent  one. 

But  we  must  remember  that  the  metropolis  received  con- 
stant tribute  of  fresh,  ambitious  young  life  from  all  lands. 
Not  merely  did  Hellas,  Judaea,  the  remoter  Orient,  pour 


270  THE  AGE   OF  SILVER  LATIN 

into  Kome  the  treasures  of  its  culture,  poetry,  myth, 
theology,  and  mystical  lore.  From  Spain,  alone,  came 
Seneca,  Lucan,  Quintilian,  Martial,  and  many  another. 
Some,  but  not  all,  of  these  provincials  were  of  Italian  descent 
or  speech.  The  wonder  is,  that  the  literature  founded  by 
Oscan  Ennius  and  African  Terence  held  so  long,  in  form 
and  largely  in  substance,  to  the  austerer  Grseco-Eoman  or 
classical  tradition.  It  is  not  at  all  strange  that,  with  Apu- 
leius,  there  comes  at  last  the  sudden  and  decisive  break. 
Silver  Latin,  then,  is  written  chiefly  by  aliens.  Forced 
into  Latin  utterance,  set  before  a  Eoman  audience,  these 
men  cast  a  certain  splendor  even  over  Nero's  or  Domitian's 
day. 

Yet  we  are  far  indeed  from  the  fresh  dawn.  Of  heroic 
epic,  Attic  drama,  Platonic  philosophy  and  ethic,  the  epoch 
of  Seneca  and  Statins  could  furnish  but  a  turgid  travesty. 
It  is  not  an  age  of  noble  deeds,  of  creative  imagination,  of 
joyous  expression,  but  a  time  of  superabundant  intellectual 
stimulus  and  culture,  of  cynical  unbelief  to  the  verge  of 
despair,  of  clever,  keen-pointed  rhetoric. 

These  five  great  masters — to  whom  the  Statins  of  the 
"  Silvse  "  might  be  added — whose  works  are  still  indispen- 
sable to  every  serious  Latin  student,  are  alike  in  this  :  they 
make  no  attempt  to  idealize  their  own  century  :  they  offer 
us  a  truthful  but  disconsolate  picture.  Their  works  may  be 
perused  with  profit  by  mature  men  and  women,  who  al- 
ready know  life,  and  know  themselves.  Youth  should  be 
chiefly  nourished  on  the  loftier,  or  at  least  happier,  utter- 
ances of  ruder  ages  and  more  hopeful  folk. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  epic  poets  here  mentioned  are  rarely  read,  either  in  English  or 
Latin.  Every  serious  student  of  the  classics  should  at  least  have  on 
his  shelf  the  handy,  legible,  and  inexpensive  Teubner  texts.  The  "  Ar- 
gonautica"  is  edited  by  Bahrens,  who  not  only  treats  his  text  with  un- 
wonted reverence,  but  adds  a  full  list  of  Virgilian  passages  imitated. 


THE  EPIC   POETRY  271 

Lucan  is  discussed  in  interesting  fashion  by  Merivale,  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Roman  Empire."  He  appears  as  a  minor  character  in  Sin- 
kiewicz's  romance  "Quo  Vadis."  The  "standard  translation"  of  the 
Pharsalia  by  Rowe  is  warmly  praised  in  the  Britannica.  The  version 
of  the  Thebaid,  Book  I.,  by  Pope  as  a  boy  of  twelve,  is  a  most  preco- 
cious exploit,  even  if  he  did  "  retouch "  it  later.  Some  delightful 
renderings  from  the  "  Silvae  "  by  Miss  H.  W.  Preston  were  made  for  the 
Warner  "  Library  "  :  the  citation  of  one  in  this  chapter  (p.  268)  is  in 
slightly  changed  form. 

There  is  a  scholarly  edition  of  the  "  Silvae  "  by  Markland,  and  Heit- 
land  has  made  a  tiny  edition  of  the  "Pharsalia,"  Book  I.  The  other 
two  epics  have  been  strikingly  neglected  by  English  scholars. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

MARTIAL  AND  JUVENAL 

MARTIAL 
41-104  A.D.  (?) 

Marcus  Valerius  Martialis,  chief  of  Roman  wits, 
author  of  more  successful  epigrams  than  any  other  Euro- 
pean versifier,  was  born  at  Bilbilis,  a  little  town  set  pict- 
uresquely on  a  Spanish  hill-crest,  over  a  swift,  cold  stream, 
the  Salo.  ''Sprung  from  Iberians  and  Celts,"  he  says  re- 
peatedly of  himself.  Good  Latin  schools  were  naturally 
accessible  in  the  native  land  of  Quintilian  and  the  Senecas. 
Cf.  supra.,  pp.      Indeed,  there  is  felt  again  at  this  epoch,  in 

"4-'s-  Spain,  the  same  mighty  stimulus,  given  by 

Roman  culture  to  intellectual  life,  as  in  another  Celtic 
region,  the  Transpadane  provinces,  in  the  time  of  Catullus, 
Virgil,  and  Livy. 

Just  what  eddy  of  the  world-wide  social  whirlpool  landed 
the  clever,  ambitious  youth  in  Rome  we  need  not  ask. 
There,  for  thirty-four  years,  he  practised  all 
the  arts  of  the  needy  adventurer,  the  obse. 
quious  client,  the  courtier  of  a  Nero  and  a  Domitian,  and 
of  their  villanous  favorites.  To  shiver  in  the  early  dawn 
at  a  haughty  patron's  gate,  to  dine  on  coarser  food  below 
the  salt,  to  accept  petty  gifts  with  extravagant  thanks,  or 
even  to  wheedle  for  them  in  vain,  was  his  year-long  voca- 
tion. That  he  knew  Rome  perfectly,  indeed  far  too  well, 
will  hardly  be  questioned. 

His  material  rewards  were  curiously  scanty,  if  we  may 
judge  from  his  verses.     He  begs  for  anything,  a  fortune 

373 


H 

O 


H 
>5 


MARTIAL  AKD  JUVENAL  273 

from  the  emperor,  or  a  second-best  toga  from  a  friend  : 
but  almost  never  does  he  return  thanks.  His  little  Sabine 
farm,  acquired  we  know  not  how,  is  barren  and  wretched. 
The  villa,  he  declares,  has  not  even  a  tight  roof  over  it. 
His  town  lodging  is  in  a  fourth  story,  a  garret.  Later  he 
has  a  small  city  house  of  his  own,  and  a  mule-team.  Yet 
when  he  finally  gives  up  the  struggle  and  retires  to  Bil- 
Piiny,  Epist.,  bilis,  the  kindly,  patronizing  Pliny  has  to 
Hi.,  31,  furnish  the  viaticum. 

Yet  Martial  had  hosts  of  friends,  among  the  more  pros- 
perous literary  men  and  the  great  nobles.  He  had  even 
been  a  guest  at  Domitian's  table.  He  seems  never  to  have 
married.  It  would  appear  certain,  then,  that  his  failure  to 
gather  a  competence  was  due  to  some  form  of  extravagance 
or  vicious  waste.     One  can  hardly  accept  his  assertion, 

*'  My  page  is  frolicsome,  my  life  unstained." 
Certainly  he  attained  promptly,  and  held  for  many  years, 
the  highest  popularity  as  an  author. 

Martial's  poems  are  extremely  brief,  and  almost  invari- 
ably "  occasional."  They  are  usually  in  elegiac  couplet  or 
hendecasyllables.  Doubtless  he  wrote  busily  all  his  life, 
though  his  collected  verses  began  to  appear  rather  late. 
When  Titus  dedicated  the  Flavian  ampitheatre,  our  "  Coli- 
seum," with  splendid  pageants  and  contests. 
Martial  described  the  games  in  a  series  of 
elegiac  poems,  now  incompletely  preserved.  These  courtly 
studies  have  rarely  the  final  epigrammatic  whip-snap  of 
his  later  efforts.  He  seems  sincerely  impressed  with  the 
greatness  of  the  empire. 

"  LJber  Spectac-    "  Where  is  a  land  so  distant,  a  race  so  barbar- 

ulorum,"  Hi.,  ous,  Csesar, 

i-a,  ii-ia.  Whence  in  thy  city  to-day  no  spectator  ap- 

pears ? 
Various  soundeth  the  speech  of  the  people,  yet  truly  united, 

Since  of  the  fatherland  thou  rightly  the  father  art  named." 


274  THE  AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

Four  years  later  Martial  published  the  singular  work, 
or  pair  of  works,  now  known  as  Book  XIII.  (Xenia)  and 
XIV.  (Apophoreta)  of  his  great  collection. 
'*    "  '  Each  poem  is  a  mere  couplet,  to  accompany 

a  present  at  the  time  of  the  Saturnalia.  The  book  of 
Apophoreta  contains  paired  poems,  one  for  the  rich  patron, 
the  other  to  accompany  the  humbler  return-gift  of  the 
client.  The  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  Xenia  are  nearly 
all  for  presents  of  dainty  foods  or  spices,  and  give  a  lively 
glimpse  at  imperial  luxury.  Even  here  the  courtier  is 
often  seen. 

A  PARROT 

**  Now  in  the  names  of  many  shall  I  by  you  be  instructed. 
'  Hail,  O  Caesar  ! '  to  cry, — this  by  myself  have  I  learned. " 

INCENSE 

"Praying  that  late  may  Germanicus  pass  to  be  monarch  of 
Heaven, 
Long  that  on  earth  he  may  rule, — offer  this  incense  to 
Jove." 

The  implied  supremacy  of  Domitian  over  Jupiter  is  a  com- 
monplace of  Roman  flattery. 

The  twelve  volumes  of  real  epigrams  appeared  later,  in 
rapid  succession.  The  prose  preface  to  the  first  book  an- 
nounces that  the  poet  writes  not  for  Cato, 
but  for  such  as  enjoy  the  mimes  at  the  Flora- 
lia,  or  merry  May-day  festival.  He  names  Catullus  among 
his  masters,  yet  anxiously  denies  that  he  attacks,  even  un- 
der substituted  names,  any  real  persons.  The  first  epi- 
gram announces : 

"  This  is  he  that  you  read  and  ask  again  for, 
Martial,  famous  in  every  land  or  nation." 

Though  possibly  prefixed  to  a  second  edition,  this  was,  no 
doubt,  simple  truth.     Martial  has  no  undue  vanity.     Hy- 


MARTIAL   AKD   JUVENAL  275 

pocrisy  is  the  one  trait  at  which  he  waxes  indignant.  No 
man  could  be  less  of  a  Puritan.  He  sees  the  ludicrous 
keenly,  of  course,  but  he  is  rarely  even  satirical,  much  less 
does  he  preach,  at  sinner  or  sin.  Even  when  at  times  he 
wearies  of  Vanity  Fair,  he  pretends  to  no  lofty  aspirations. 
Perhaps  his  frankest  utterance  of  his  wishes,  though  the 
original  is  in  the  jerky,  eleven-syllable  verse  that  always 
makes  the  stately  Roman  words  seems  whimsical,  may  be 
thus  paraphrased. 

* '  The  things  which  render  life  more  blest  are 
*-"*^*  these: 

Wealth  as  a  heritage,  not  won  by  toil, 

A  fertile  farm,  one  hearth  the  whole  year  through, 

No  strife,  a  tranquil  spirit,  coatless  ease, 

Vigorous  muscles  in  a  healthy  frame, 

Informal  social  ties  and  simple  fare, 

Suppers  that  cheer  but  not  intoxicate, 

A  modest  yet  a  fond  and  willing  wife, 

Sleep  such  as  makes  the  hours  of  darkness  brief, 

— Perfect  contentment  with  that  which  we  are, 

Without  desire,  or  terror,  for  the  End. ' ' 

Such  are  Martial's  best  tones.  Direct  advertisement  of, 
e.g.,  a  patron's  baths,  blackmail,  or  something  very  like  it, 
above  all  loving,  lingering  details  of  every  foulest  vice, 
we  meet  all  too  often  on  these  sprightly  pages.  The  man 
who  receives  his  praise,  and  fails  to  pay  well  for  it,  is 
frankly  stigmatized  as  a  cheat.  He  will  even 
v.,  3  ,  V  .,1  .      -^^^  ^  benefactor  to  buy  back  his  own  gifts. 

Virtues  he  had,  also  :  loyalty  to  friends  humble  or  lofty, 
kindness  to  slaves,  to  children,  and  to  the  helpless  gener- 
ally, and  last,  like  the  Senecas,  a  yearning  homesickness, 
that  actually  brought  him  back  to  his  birthplace  at  the  end. 
That  he  found  Nerva  and  Trajan  cold  to  his  flatteries  is 
natural.  But  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  he  tried  to  win 
them  by  assailing  the  memory  of  Domitian,     That  final 


276  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

charge  of  meanness  depends  on  a  couplet  quoted  by  a  scho- 
liast on  Juvenal,  interpreted,  and  assigned  to  Martial,  only 
on  that  scholiast's  assertion. 

At  Bilbilis  a  wealthy  lady,  Marcella,  gave  him  a  really 
beautiful  estate.  He  assures  her  that  she  herself  replaces 
Eome  to  him.  Yet  the  whole  tone  seems  far  too  deferen- 
tial for  a  lover  or  husband :  it  is  more  likly  that  he  had 
found  at  last  an  ideal  patroness. 

There,  too,  he  grew  restless,  eager  for  the  excitement,  the 
stimulus,  the  comradeship,  even  the  hollow  and  heartless 
splendor,  of  the  world-city.  Envy  crept  into  his  Paradise. 
Yet  he  was  doubtless  glad  to  grow  old,  in  peace,  at  home. 

With  a  good- will  in  which  respect  is  hardly  mingled,  we 
may  repeat  over  Martial's  grave  the  sentiment  of  the  line 
he  had  once  composed  for  a  pretty  slave-girl  and  dancer  : 

"  Light  lie  upon  her,  O  earth  :  lightly  on  you  did  she  tread." 

Of  dignity,  not  to  mention  noble  aspiration,  he  has  no 
taste.  The  ideals  even  of  sensuous  beauty,  which  Ovid 
could  still  see  and  portray,  are  almost  vanished.  Yet  Mar- 
tial at  least  saw  his  own  environment  clearly  and  accurately. 
He  set  down  with  little  malice,  in  swift,  light  outlines,  just 
what  he  saw.  The  wit  of  antithesis,  of  grotesquerie,  even 
of  delicate  humor,  sweetens  nearly  every  page.  Of  tlie 
twelve  hundred  epigrams  in  his  twelve  chief  books,  per- 
haps one-sixth  should  be  effaced  forever  from  human  mem- 
ory. The  rest  offer  a  picture  quite  ignoble  enough,  and  as 
accurate  as  could  well  be,  of  Domitian's  Rome. 

JUVENAL 

Of  this  author's  life  hardly  any  thing  is  positively  known. 
Between  Juvenal  and  Martial  there  is,  after  all,  but  one  im- 
portant link  :  they  both  give  us  vivid  pictures  of  the  same 
age.     Juvenal,  however,  lives  in  the  security  of  a  later 


MARTIAL   AND   JUVENAL  277 

time,  while  he  describes  Domitian's  terrible  days.  After 
wide  experience,  already  past  middle  life,  he  writes  with 
the  bitterness  of  a  disappointed  old  man.  The  satires  are 
to  be  divided  into  five  books,  which  appear  to  have  been 
composed  and  published  in  regular  chronological  succes- 
sion, under  Trajan  and  Hadrjan.  The  poet  is  supposed  to 
have  lived  till  past  eighty,  and  to  have  died  in  the  reign 
of  Antoninus. 

Juvenal  mentions  no  living  folk  :  a  prudent  limitation. 
His  sermons,  moreover,  ring  far  less  sincere  than  Seneca's. 
Like  Seneca  also,  especially  in  the  powerful  and  savage 
Sixth  Satire,  aimed  at  the  vices  of  women,  he  dwells  with 
a  certain  enjoyment  on  the  coarsest  details.  It  really 
seems  incredible,  that  this  fiercest  of  all  tirades  against 
women  is  addressed  to  a  friend  about  to  marry.  It  is 
amusing  to  notice  that  the  athletic  woman,  and  yet  more 
the  learned  blue-stocking,  are  quite  as  obnoxious  as  their 
murderous  or  vicious  sisters. 

The  impression  is  constantly  given,  in  this  and  most 
of  the  early  satires,  that  Juvenal  is  more  anxious  to  be 
piquant,  picturesque,  thrilling,  than  to  draw  a  truthful 
sketch.  In  the  weaving  of  a  social  history  of  the  em- 
pire, then,  his  fierce,  heavy  satires  do  not  compare  in 
importance  with  Martial's  winged  epigrams. 

Yet  Juvenal's  style  is  a  powerful  weapon.  His  phrases 
have  a  way  of  stamping  themselves  indelibly  on  the  mem- 
ory of  mankind.  Me7is  scna  in  corpore  sano  needs  no 
translation.  A  sermon,  clinched  with  an  epigrammatic 
antithesis,  is  perfectly  packed  into  two  verses  : 

"  Count  it  the  greatest  of  sins,  to  prefer  existence  to  honor, 
And,  for  the  sake  of  life,  to  lose  all  reason  for  living." 

A  shrewd  commonplace  and  a  complete  picture  are  set  be- 
fore us  in  a  single  line, 

"Empty-handed,  a  traveller  sings  in  the  face  of  the  robber." 


278  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

Perhaps  the  severest  criticism  to  be  made  on  Jnvenal  is 
precisely  this,  that  lie  is  so  quotable.  His  best  passages 
are  quite  as  effective  alone.  His  satires  rarely  have  any 
natural  beginning  or  end,  any  artistic  unity.  His  influ- 
ence has  been  greatly  increased,  no  doubt,  by  the  bitter 
disapproval,  the  austere  aloofness  from  which  he  gazes, 
with  us  as  it  were,  upon  his  degenerate  and  ignoble  time. 
This  has  made  his  volume  a  storehouse  of  weapons  for 
the  Christian  preacher  in  every  age.  Persius  is  herein 
somewhat  like  him,  but  Juvenal  has  the  advantage  of 
mature  experience,  of  a  knowledge  almost  as  intimate  and 
detailed  as  Martial's. 

The  best-known  satires  of  Juvenal  are  no  doubt  the  two 
imitated  by  Dr.  Johnson  in  his  "London "and  *' Vanity 
Juvenal,  ill.  and    of  Human   Wislics."      The   description   of 

^-  Kome — or  London,  as  Dr.  Johnson  recasts 

it — in  the  former  piece,  leaves  a  decidedly  encouraged  feel- 
ing, at  least  as  to  the  physical  cleanliness,  comfort,  and 
safety  of  modern  cities.  The  complaints  against  fierce 
competition,  favoritism,  the  poverty  of  the  honest  man, 
still  sound  familiar.  A  better  unity  than  usual  is  attained 
by  the  mention  of  the  upright  Umbricius,  whose  departure 
from  the  city  for  Oumae  is  announced  at  the  beginning, 
and  occurs  at  the  close. 

The  Tenth  Satire  is  the  most  moderate  in  tone,  the  larg- 
est in  outlook.  The  illustrations  are  gathered  from  a  wide 
field,  Hannibal,  even  Priam,  appearing  beside  Cicero  and 
Sejanus.  In  preaching  against  vain  ambition,  praising 
moderation,  and  contentment,  Juvenal  approaches  much 
nearer  than  usual  the  calm  level  of  Horace. 

Oftener  his  strenuous,  shrill  tones,  his  lurid  colorings, 
leave  us  unsympathetic  and  cold  from  their  very  extrava- 
gance. Yet  in  the  thirteenth  poem  the  futility  of  revenge, 
the  torture  of  remorse,  the  consciousness  of  sin,  are  so 
painted  as  to  justify  the  surmise  that  Juvenal  was  familiar 


MAKTIAL   AND   JUVENAL  279 

with  Christian  ethics.  In  the  fourteenth,  again,  the  duties 
of  parents  are  earnestly  set  forth  :  above  all,  the  reverence 
due  to  childhood,  the  necessity  of  offering  an  example  of 
spotless  purity. 

In  general,  the  later  satires  are  calmer,  better  connected, 
clearer  in  expression.  We  seem  oftener  to  catch  the  sin- 
cere natural  tones  of  the  man,  not  the  high-pitched  voice 
of  the  declaimer.  The  learned  German  scholar  Kibbeck, 
indeed,  insisted  that  these  latter  poems  are  greatly  inferior 
in  merit,  and  clearly  from  another  hand,  not  JuvenaFs  at 
all:  but  this  theory  is  hardly  defended  now  by  anyone. 

Almost  any  poem  of  Juvenal's,  however,  is  depressing  in 
tone,  difficult  to  follow  in  detail,  ineffective  as  a  whole. 
He  should  be  read  by  all,  save  specialists,  in  mere  extracts 
more  or  less  sustained.  In  that  form  he  has  some  claims 
as  a  poet,  but  more  as  a  prophet  of  a  larger  moral  law,  of 
a  better  age  than  his  people  had  known. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  chief  commentator  on  Martial  is  the  German  scholar  Fried- 
lander,  who  has  a  most  thorough  edition  in  two  volumes  with  German 
notes.  We  may  mention  here  also  the  same  author's  "  Sittenge- 
schichte  Roms,"  to  which  the  notes  of  his  edition  often  refer.  Martial 
offers  the  best  starting-point  for  a  student  who  wishes  to  approach  that 
unsavory  but  important  subject.  Martial's  works  suffer  nothing  by 
severe  sifting,  and  Professor  Sellar  in  his  useful  school  edition  even 
omits  lines  from  some  single  poems  which  he  wished  to  include.  Both 
in  the  introduction  to  this  text-book,  and  in  the  "  Britannica,"  Sellar 
made  a  tolerant,  even  an  appreciative,  study  of  Martial. 

This  author's  epigrammatic  terseness  naturally  appealed  especially 
to  the  age  of  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Johnson.  Teachers  who  desire  to 
supplement  this  too  brief  chapter  will  find  in  Bohn's  Classical  Library 
a  remarkably  useful  volume,  giving  not  only  a  literal  translation,  but 
a  select  verse  rendering  also,  of  every  epigram  that  is  fit  to  be  read  at 

all. 

The  two  poems  of  Dr.  Johnson  mentioned  in  the  text  are  not  trans- 
lations, but  in  general  plan  and  many  details  they  imitate  Juvenal's 
Third  and  Tenth  Satires.     There  are  English  translations  of  Juvenal  in 


280  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

verse  by  Gifford,  Hodgson,  Badbam :  none  absolutely  faithful  in  his 
coarsest  passages.  Even  Lewis's  prose  version  softens  the  original 
somewhat.  This  latter  translation  is  combined  with  the  Latin  text, 
and  accompanied  by  a  volume  of  useful  notes.  The  monumental 
edition  by  J.  B.  Mayor  is  exhaustive  in  all  senses.  Sellar's  article  in 
the  "Britannica,"  and  Ramsay's  in  the  Smith  "Dictionary  of  Greek 
and  Roman  Biography"  are  well  known.  But  Juvenal  is  best  under- 
stood in  connection  with  the  general  life  of  his  time,  for  which  we 
may  once  more  refer  especially  to  Friedlander  and  Merivale.  We 
can  hardly  hope  that  the  section  of  the  venerable  Professor  Momm- 
sen'a  history  on  this  period  will  ever  appear. 


CHAPTEK  XXXII 

QUINTILIAN" 

The  three  prominent  authors  of  this  epoch  still  to  be 
discussed  all  win  our  hearty  admiration  and  regard.  They 
were  thoroughly  sane,  shrewd,  practical  men,  and  all  had 
honorable,  happy  careers.  Their  productions,  to  be  sure, 
are  at  best  merely  in  the  border-land  of  creative  art.  Di- 
verse as  they  are  in  many  respects,  each  attained  a  remark- 
ably effective,  finished,  and  suitable  prose  style.  To  them, 
indeed,  Latin  owes  largely  its  extraordinary  vitality  and 
influence,  still  exerted  through  the  Eomance  languages, 
and  through  our  own  English  speech,  as  well  as  directly, 
on  the  forms  of  literary  taste. 

Quintilian  is  in  one  respect  even  more  notable  than 
Pliny  or  Tacitus  :  for  his  useful  career  was  rounded  out, 
and  his  chief  work  published,  amid  the  reign  of  terror 
in  Domitian's  last  years.  Indeed,  the  one  or  two  pages  of 
his  that  cause  us  serious  regret  are  his  eulogies  of  the 
Quint., institut.,  "  most  lioly  ccnsor,"  "the  prince  most  emi- 
iv..  Prologue,  ^lent  in  eloquence  as  in  all  else,"  that  "  god 
than  whom  none  is  more  present  or  helpful  to  effort,"  etc., 
etc.  Such  words  doubtless  seemed  a  necessary  price  to  pay 
for  safety  and  prosperity  in  the  year  95  a. d.  Yet  we  may 
be  sure  that  a  twelvemonth  later  Quintilian  bitterly  re- 
gretted that  it  was  too  late  to  cancel  the  passage,  and  to 
dedicate  his  great  woi'k,  in  more  temperate  and  sincere 
terms,  to  Nerva  or  Trajan. 

Marcus  Fabius  Quintilianus,  of  humble  Spanish  birth, 
was  by  profession,  and  even  by  heredity,  a  teacher  of  rhet- 

281 


282  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

oric  and  oratory.  After  studying  with  the  best  masters 
at  Rome,  he  retired,  in  Nero's  worst  days,  to  Spain,  but  came 
back  to  the  capital  in  Galba's  train,  and  there  remained. 
Under  Vespasian,  he,  first  of  the  rhetors,  received  a  regu- 
lar and  liberal  salary  from  the  emperor.  After  twenty 
years'  service  at  the  head  of  his  flourishing  school,  he 
retired  from  regular  teaching,  and  soon  de- 
voted himself  to  the  composition  of  his  chief 
work,  '*  Institutiones  Oratoriae,"  or  The  Education  of  the 
Orator. 

The  outburst  of  gratitude  quoted  above  was  occasioned 
by  his  appointment  as  tutor  to  the  Emperor  Domitian's 
grand-nephews.  We  hear  that  he  was  even 
brevetted  to  consular  rank.  Such  an  eleva- 
tion of  a  school-master  can  hardly  have  pleased  even  the 
cowed  and  decimated  nobility  of  that  day,  but  no  one 
seems  to  have  envied  his  prosperity.  Pliny  was  his  grate- 
ful pupil.     Martial's  apostrophe 

"  O  Quintilian,  restless  youth's  most  eminent  ruler, 
O  Quintilian,  thou  pride  of  the  toga  of  Rome," 

seems  playfully  affectionate  rather  than  obsequious.  We 
have  quoted  under  Statins  from  the  querulous 
Seventh  Satire  of  Juvenal,  on  the  meagre 
rewards  doled  out  by  wealthy  patrons  to  literary  genius. 
Quintilian  is  there  made  the  typical  if  not  the  unique  ex- 
ception, but  there  is  no  bitterness,  unless  the  repeated  al- 
lusions to  his  good  fortune  may  intimate  a  lack  of  supe- 
rior merit. 

"  .     .     .     Fortunate,  venturesome,  handsome, 
Fortunate,  truly,  and  wise,  and  noble.     .     .     . 
Lucky  indeed  is  the  man,  and  than  a  white  crow  is  he  rarer," 

The  mature  orator's  girl-wife  had  died  at  nineteen.    One 
of  her  boys  lived  to  be  five,  the  other  ten.     The  heart- 


QUINTILIAN"  283 

broken  preface  to  Book  VI. ,  written  when  the  last  blow  had 
just  fallen,  reminds  us  of  Emerson's  "Threnody."  There 
is  a  peculiar  pathos  when  the  orator  and  classical  scholar 
notes  the  dead  child's  "clearness  of  voice,  sweetness  of  tone, 
and  a  peculiar  facility  in  sounding  every  letter  in  either 
language.  .  .  .  What  good  parent  could  forgive  me, 
if  I  could  go  calmly  on  with  my  studies?  " 

Quintilian  has  by  no  means  left  us  a  mere  manual  of 
technical  rhetoric.  Following  Cicero,  in  this  as  in  all  else. 
Book  I.,  Preface,  most  reverently,  he  would  have  his  orator 
9-IO.  gj-g^  a  good  man,  a  useful  citizen,  a  states- 

man, a  scholar,  even  a  philosopher.  The  education  of  the 
future  pleader  is  begun  in  the  cradle,  with  excellent  re- 
marks on  nurses.  He  should  be  sent  early  to  school,  largely 
to  remove  him  from  the  vicious  indulgences  of  home  life  in 
Roman  palaces.  "  Every  dining-room  rings  with  impure 
songs.  Things  shameful  to  be  told  are  the  objects  of  sight. 
.  .  .  What  will  he  not  expect  in  after  years  who  has 
crept  upon  the  purple  ?"  The  liberal  provision  of  "  ped- 
agogues "  and  other  attendants  recalls  how  cheaply  even 
Greek  philosophers  could  be  either  hired  or  bought  in  the 
great  metropolis. 

The  first  and  second  of  the  twelve  books  are  full  of  hu- 
mane observations  on  childhood,  and  wise  hints  on  primary 
education.  If  we  wonder  that  the  infants  are 
given  ivory  letters  for  playthings,  we  must  re- 
member that  both  their  languages  were  rationally  phonetic  : 
and  "saying  the  alphabet"  is  expressly  condemned.  The 
author  approves  what  was  then  habitual,  to  have  the  boy 
learn  first  to  speak  Greek,  but  thinks  the  use  of  the  mother- 
tongue  has  been  delayed  too  late,  a  fashion  which  has  Hel- 
lenized  the  pronunciation  and  idiom  of  fashionable  Eome. 
On  emulation  among  ambitious  boys,  competitive  tests, 
discovery  and  encouragement  of  individual  talents,  corporal 
punishment — which  he  condemns  as   slavish — and  a  hun- 


284  THE  AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

dred  other  topics,  Quintilian  has  words  thut  still  deserve 
to  be  weighed  carefully  by  every  student  of  pedagogy. 

Of  almost  unique  interest  is  the  Tenth  Book,  in  which 
all  the  best  authors,  as  Quintiliau  accounts  them,  of  Greek 
and  Latin  literature,  including  many  not  now  extant,  are 
passed  in  thouglitful  review.  Indeed,  Quintilian  may  well 
be  counted  among  the  sanest  of  literary  critics.  Even  his 
brief  remarks  are  models  of  method  and  form,  as  where  in  a 
curt  antithesis  he  says  of  the  two  greatest  orators  :  "  From 
Demosthenes  nothing  can  be  taken  away,  to  Cicero  nothing 
can  be  added."  An  epigram  of  Martial  could  no«t  have 
passed  a  better  judgment  on  Cicero's  flippant  correspond- 
ent, Cselius  Rufus  :  "  A  man  of  much  ability  and  pleasant 
wit,  worthy  to  have  had  longer  life  and  nobler  thoughts." 

Quintilian  insists  that  we  must  begin  with  Homer, 

* '  From  whom  all  river-streams,  and  every  sea, 
All  sources,  and  the  mighty  fountains  flow!  " 

This  large  appreciation  gives  assurance  of  our  author's 
superiority  to  the  ordinary  taste  of  his  time.  He  remarks 
impressively  on  the  masterful  knowledge  of  persuasive  rhet- 
oric shown,  e.g.,  in  the  great  speeches  of  Iliad  IX.  Eurip- 
ides and  Menander,  for  similar  reasons,  win  the  critic's 
warmest  sympathy.  Menander,  it  may  be  noted,  is  the 
only  Hellenic  author,  here  named  as  the  best  in  his  kind, 
who  is  wholly  lost. 

With  all  his  national  loyalty,  Quintilian  frankly  con- 
fesses the  superior  genius  of  the  Greeks,  placing  Virgil 
second  to  Homer,  remarking  that  "  we  scarcely  attain  a 
faint  image  of  Greek  comedy,"  and  crediting  Plato  with 
superhuman  inspiration.  The  extravagant  eulogy  on  Sal- 
lust  has  been  cited.  In  history,  indeed,  as  in  elegy,  he 
feels  that  Rome  holds  its  own,  while  "Satire  certainly  is 
wholly  ours." 


QUINTILIAN  285 

In  this  review  of  Graeco-Roman  letters  we  must  bear  con- 
stantly in  mind  that  a  rhetorician  is  calling  attention  to 
those  authors  and  works  which  are  most  useful  to  students 
of  his  own  art.  It  is  instructive  to  note  that  he  looks  hack, 
already,  upon  Virgil  and  Cicero  no  less  than  upon  De- 
mosthenes and  Homer,  as  classic  models.  That  is,  the 
philosophic  critic  sees  that  he  stands  on  the  confines  of 
his  epoch. 

The  one  grave  blot  is  again  an  extravagant  and  utterly 
incongruous  eulogy  of  Domitian's  youthful  attempts  in 
verse.  Elsewhere,  though  courteous  to  the  living,  he  evi- 
dently recognizes  the  decadence  of  literature.  This  is  most 
clearly  seen  in  his  careful  closing  discussion  of  Seneca,  who 
at  one  time  "had  been  almost  the  only  writer  in  the  hands 
of  the  young." 

We  ought,  however,  not  to  judge  Quintilian  by  these  two 
great  episodes,  as  we  may  call  them,  but  by  his  treatise  as 
a  whole.  Or,  if  the  technical  portions  repel  us,  we  should 
at  least  peruse  attentively  the  closing  book,  on  the  moral 
requisites,  the  ideal  career,  the  civic  usefulness,  of  the 
great  speaker.  The  author  is  fully  aware  that  the  loss  of 
freedom  under  the  empire  has  cut  the  sinews  of  oratory. 
Though  the  Gracchi,  Antonius  and  Crassus,  and  Cicero, 
leaders  in  eloquence,  respectively,  during  the  last  three 
generations  of  the  republic,  had  perished  by  violence,  yet 
all  had  been  fearless  in  utterance,  had  exerted  a  vital  in- 
fluence on  the  political  life  of  their  times.  This  was  no 
longer  possible. 

Yet  it  may  well  be  that  Quintilian  hoped  for  the  return 
of  better  conditions.  This  did  indeed  come  to  pass,  and 
for  nearly  a  century  a  larger  measure  of  dignity,  if  not 
of  effective  power,  was  accorded  to  the  Senate.  For  the 
effort  to  revive  a  better  rhetorical  taste,  under  Trajan  and 
his  noble  successors,  we  may  safely  give  large  credit  to 
Quintilian's  example  and   precedent.     All   that  is  most 


286  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

practical  in  Cicero's  various  works  is  here  reverently  pre- 
served, and  the  compendious  objective  treatise  appeals  to 
many  minds  far  more  effectively  than  the  most  graceful  of 
desultory  dialogues,  like  the  "De  Oratore."  The  work 
has  still  a  secure  position,  like  Euclid's  in  geometry,  or 
Aristotle's  in  logic.  Every  race  and  generation  will  make 
its  own  text-books,  but  tlie  art,  or  science,  is  essentially  a 
closed  one,  once  for  all  adequately  set  forth. 

In  beginning  his  critique  of  Seneca,  Quintilian  mentions 
former  strictures  which  had  caused  some  to  suppose  that 
he  even  hated  the  brilliant  philosopher.  This  was  doubt- 
less in  his  essay  "  On  the  Causes  of  the  Decay  of  Elo- 
quence." This  work  is  lost.  The  two  collections,  one  of 
complete  ''Declamations,"  the  other  of  outlined  abstracts 
for  similar  pleas,  are  no  longer  attributed  to  Quintilian. 
Most  of  the  subjects  discussed  are  in  fact  precisely  such 
fantastic  theses,  remote  from  all  the  needs  of  practical 
life,  as  he  most  vigorously  condemns. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  English  reader  is  here  again  best  served  by  the  Bohn  Classical 
Library.  In  two  volumes  J.  S.  Watson  gives  a  careful  literal  trans- 
lation, with  copious  notes,  chiefly  drawn  from  the  exhaustive  edition 
of  Spaulding.  English  and  American  school  books  usually  offer  us 
Book  X.  only ;  Professor  Frieze  in  a  useful  annotated  edition  includes 
also  XII.  But  the  first  two  books  deserve  much  better  treatment.  The 
best  text  edition  is  Meister's,  in  Schenkl's  attractive  "  Bibliotheca" 
(Leipzig  and  Prague).  This  contains  also  critical  notes,  and  further- 
more supplies  the  sources  for  (iuintilian's  many  quotations.  Poggio 
re-discovered  Quintilian  at  St.  Gall,  and  the  complete  copy  made  by 
the  Renaissance  scholar  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  library  of  San  Lorenzo 
at  Florence. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE   PLINIES 

FLINT   THE    ELDER  PLINY   THE   TOUNGEB 

23-79  A.D.  61-114(?)  A.D. 

The  brief  reign  of  Titus  included  three  public  calamities 
so  overwhelming  that  they  must  have  confirmed  the  fond 
belief  of  the  Jews  in  the  signal  curse  des- 
tined to  befall  him  who  had  assailed  the  holy 
city.     The  fire,  almost  as  destructive  as  Nero's,  and  the 
pestilence,  that  slew  ten  thousand  in  a  day,  were  local  Ro- 
man   disasters.     Far    better  remembered    is 
the   eruption   of  Vesuvius,    that    destroyed 
Pompeii  and  altered  nearly  all  the  physical  features  of  the 
Neapolitan  region. 

Of  the  many  victims  on  that  occasion,  by  far  the  most  il- 
lustrious was  Gains  Plinius  Secundus,  generally  known  as 
"  Pliny  the  Elder."  This  unwearying  student  was  born, 
of  good  Roman  stock,  at  New  Como,  in  23  a.d.  Even 
when  he  had  become  one  of  Vespasian's  most  trusted  and 
active  commanders,  his  reading  and  writing  never  ceased. 
The  latter  half  of  the  night,  the  supper  hour,  even  his 
bathing  time,  were  anxiously  improved,  a  slave  constantly 
Epist.,  HI.,  5,  reading  to  him,  or  taking  notes  from  his  dic- 
"-'**•  tation.     A  shorthand  writer,  in  warm  gloves, 

shared  his  winter  walks.  His  nephew  recalled,  even,  with 
some  vexation,  no  doubt,  having  been  reproved  for  spend- 
ing at  all,  out  of  doors,  time  which  could  have  been  de- 
voted to  study.  His  scrap-books  alone,  finely  and  closely 
written,  amounted  to  160  volumes. 

387 


288  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN 

This  extraordinary  man  was  commander  of  the  Roman 
fleet  when  he  risked  and  lost  his  life  in  an  attempt  to  ob- 
serve more  closely  the  eruption  of  the  vol- 
cano, and  to  save  some  of  its  victims.  His 
nephew,  who  is  the  chief  subject  of  this  chapter,  was  then 
cf.  Epist.,  vii.,  but  eighteen,  and  there  is  some  excuse  for  a 
^o-  certain  levity  and  self-consciousness  betrayed 

even  in  his  account  of  that  terrible  scene. 

The  uncle  can  hardly  have  been  a  considerate  tutor  of 
youth.  Even  the  catalogue  of  his  lost  works,  filially  re- 
Epist.,  iiL.s,  corded  by  his  kinsman,  is  exhausting.  His- 
*-<^-  tory  of  his   own   times,    thirty-one  books ; 

German  wars,  twenty  ;  debatable  points  of  grammar,  eight ; 
art  of  oratory,  three  ;  biography  of  his  friend  and  patron, 
the  tragedian  and  general  Pomponius  Secundus,  two,  etc., 
etc. 

We  possess  only  the  "  Historia  Naturalis,"  or  Cyclopae- 
dia, completed,  provisionally,  and  dedicated  to  the  prince 
regent,  Titus,  in  77  a.d.  Some  peculiarities  of  this  work 
would  bewilder  us,  but  for  our  knowledge  of  the  author's 
life  and  his  methods.  The  style,  though  usually  bald  and 
hasty,  changes  curiously  as  he  passes  from  one  subject  to 
anotlier.  The  truth  is,  Pliny  has  here  excerpted  some  five 
hundred  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  many  of  them  quite 
beyond  his  own  range  of  intelligent  criticism.  On  farming, 
e.g.,  he  speaks  witli  Cato's  harsh  simplicity,  but  next  mo- 
ment a  philosophic  passage  imitates  closely  the  rhetoric  of 
Seneca.  Pliny's  own  style,  as  in  the  fulsome  dedication, 
is  highly  artificial,  labored,  and  tawdry. 

The  most  famous  phrase  in  the  whole  work  is  perhaps 

the  remark,  clearly  occasioned  by  a  gap  in  his  authorities, 

H.  N.,  xxxiv.,    that  in  a  certain  year  the  art  of  sculpture 

7>  52-  among  the  Greeks  "stopped,"  {cessavit)  and 

was  suddenly  revived  thirty-five  Olympiads  later. 

All  uses  of  minerals  are  berated  as  impiety.     "  How  in- 


THE   PLINIES  389 

nocent,  how  blest,  how  delightful  our  life  would  be,  if  it 
craved  nothing  save  what  is  on  earth's  surface,  in  short, 

what  is  within  its  reach  ! "  Even  coin,  and 
XXXH1..1, 3.         commerce  itself,   are  alike   accurst.      Each 

heroic  statue  is  a  monument  of  mortal  au- 
xxxiv.,7.  i8.  (jacity.  The  hewing  away  of  mountains, 
and  the  traversing  the  sea  to  fetch  the  blocks  from  foreign 
quarries,  are  alike  impious  attacks  on  the  barriers  set  by 
Providence  between  the  nations.     We  might  often  fancy 

we  were  listening  to  John  Ruskin's  fierce  on- 
"*^  ■' ''  ^'  slaught  upon  a  more  sordid  and  ugly  dese- 
cration of  Nature  by  man.  Yet  on  this  very  subject  of 
the  plastic  arts,  and  others  as  well,  the  loss  of  the  original 
sources  makes  Pliny  the  chief,  often  our  sole  reliance. 
During  most  of  the  Middle  Ages,  his  Cyclopsedia  filled  a 
much  larger  place  than  the  Britannica  holds  in  our  day. 

The  general  plan  of  the  work  is  curious,  but  not  so  il- 
logical. It  may  be  thus  summarized  :  Book  I.,  contents 
and  general  bibliography  of  sources ;  II.,  general  descrip- 
tion of  the  universe  ;  III.-VI.,  geography  and  ethnology  ; 
VII.,  anthropology;  VIIL-XL,  zoology;  XII.-XIX.,  de- 
scriptive botany ;  XX.-XXVIL,  vegetable  curatives ; 
XXVIII.-XXXII.,  curatives  from  the  animal  kingdom; 
XXXIII.-XXXVII.,  metals  and  stones.  In  the  last  sec- 
tion is  included,  episodically  as  it  were,  the  use  of  bronze, 
marble,  etc.,  in  art.  The  work  is  a  manual  of  the  physical 
sciences  and  their  most  useful  applications. 

Pliny  is  a  Pantheist,  but  much  less  than  Lucretius  does 
he  accept  the  universality  of  law.  Hence  he  is  credulous 
as  to  any  phenomenon,  and  records  it  on  scantiest  evidence. 
He  is  often  querulous,  also,  complaining,  e.g.,  that  every 
infant  weeps  from  birth,  but  not  one  learns  to  laugh  for 
at  least  a  month.  Many,  perhaps  most,  of  his  statements 
are  unintelligible,  or  irrational,  or  utterly  antiquated,  in 
the  light  of  modern  science.     Yet  both  for  the  manifold 


290  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

data  not  elsewhere  accessible,  and  as  a  compendium  of 
what  was  at  least  generally  accepted  for  centuries  as  truth, 
this  work  is  of  the  utmost  interest  to  the  historian  of  the 
human  intellect.  Of  literary  form  or  quality,  however,  it 
has  little  indeed.  This  must  be  our  excuse  for  attempting 
no  more  adequate  account  of  it  here. 

"  Hail,  Nature,  mother  of  all  things,  and  be  thou  gracious 
to  me,  since  I,  alone  of  Quirites,  have  glorified  thee  in  all 
thy  parts  ! "     Such  is  his  final  and  not  ineffective  cry. 

The  sister's  son  of  this  gallant,  tireless,  opinionated, 
pessimistic  scholar,  called,  after  his  adoption  by  his  kins- 
man, Gains  Plinius  Caecilius  Secundus,  is  now  best  known 
as  *'  Pliny  the  Younger,"  Quintilian  had  probably  more 
influence  than  his  uncle  in  moulding  the  youth's  tastes. 
He  early  became  a  busy  successful  advocate,  and  through 
his  eloquence — combined  of  necessity  with  courtly  tact — 
rose  into  such  a  political  career  as  was  yet  open  under  the 
empire.  The  old  curule  offices  were  still  formally  filled, 
chiefly  by  the  emperor's  personal  appointment.  For  sev- 
eral months  of  the  year  100  a.d.  Trajan  even  resigned  the 
consulship  in  Pliny's  favor.  Military  service  he  naturally 
shared  also.  At  the  very  close  of  his  life  we  find  him  for 
two  years  in  charge  of  Bithynia  as  the  emperor's  legate. 

Pliny's  wealth  was  abundant,  and  was  used  with  wise 
generosity.  In  particular  he  showed  his  love  for  his  native 
Como  by  such  munificent  gifts  as  a  system  of  public  baths, 
an  endowed  library,  etc.  Impecunious  men  of  letters,  like 
Martial,  found  him  a  generous  patron.  It  is  not  wholly 
strange  if  we  find  in  this  happy  man's  writings  a  picture 
of  Eoman  life  hardly  to  be  reconciled  with  Martial's  or 
Juvenal's. 

Luckily  for  Pliny's  consistency,  no  word  of  his  uttered 
before  Domitian's  death  appears  to  be  preserved.  For  his 
prosperity  throughout  that  reign  he  makes  the  best  apolo- 


THE   PLINIES  291 

gies  he  can  :  that  his  promotions  and  other  favors  were 
accepted  before  the  tyrant  revealed  his  worst  traits,  that  in 
the  last  years  of  terror  he  had  declined  the  imperial  ad- 
vances :  that  a  signed  order  for  his  death  was  actually 
found,  after  Domitian  himself  was  slain. 

Of  Pliny's  speeches,  polished  by  himself  and  his  friends 
for  years  after  their  delivery,  one  survives,  the  panegyric 
on  Trajan,  delivered  when  he  followed  his  master  in  the 
consulship.  It  is,  in  fact,  our  main,  all  but  our  sole, 
source  for  the  history  of  the  three  first  years  of  this  noble 
reign.  The  financial  reforms,  the  charities,  the  great  con- 
structions, of  the  new  emperor  are  described  in  glowing 
colors.  The  bitter  hatred  expressed  for  Domitian  can 
hardly  have  been  necessary.  In  general  the  performance 
is  wearisome  to  the  modern  reader,  and  surely  not  a  fair 
result  of  Quintilian's  precepts. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  "Letters"  make  up  the  most 
readable  volume  of  classical  Latin  prose  since  Livy's. 
The  title  is  really  misleading.  In  all  the  nine  books  very 
few  real  epistles,  of  an  occasional  and  spontaneous  charac- 
ter, are  to  be  found.  Not  only  is  each  a  little  essay  in  its 
finished  form  ;  we  get  the  impression  that  nearly  all  were 
so  conceived.  Each  treats  a  single  well-defined  subject. 
In  most  cases  there  is  no  reason  to  be  discovered  why  there 
should  have  been  any  address  added,  save  perchance  Ad 
Posteritatem. 

We  miss  the  enjoyable  consciousness,  so  often  felt  in 
perusing  Cicero's  billets  to  Atticus,  not  to  mention  many 
a  more  recent  volume  of  familiar  letters,  that  we  are  hear- 
ing what  the  writer  would  never  have  wished  or  allowed  us 
to  know.  The  general  view  of  social  life  under  Trajan, 
and  especially  of  Pliny's  own  character,  is  doubtless  far  too 
optimistic.  Yet  the  work  is  generally  and  rightly  praised, 
as  the  autobiography  of  a  lovable,  refined,  surprisingly 
modern  gentleman.     We  often  lay  the  book  down,  as  in- 


292  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

deed  the  brevity,  the  completeness,  the  finish,  of  each  let- 
ter make  it  easy  to  do.  Yet  we  gladly  pick  it  up  again, 
and  we  acquire  at  last  an  intimate  familiarity  with  the 
writer  and  his  large  circle  of  friends.  Though  the  letters 
are  not  arranged  in  exact  chronological  order,  the  nine 
books  seem  to  have  followed  each  other  successively  be- 
tween 96  and  110  a.d. 

Some  of  Pliny's  foibles,  such  as  his  frank  vanity  and 
self-consciousness,  his  hunger  for  immortal  fame,  his  cre- 
dulity as  to  ghosts  and  superstitions,  his  dislike  of  his  elo- 
quent rival  Eegulus — not  merely  as  a  heartless  informer  in 
Domitian's  worst  days,  but  quite  as  much  for  his  popular- 
ity and  success  in  the  law  courts — only  appeal  to  our 
human  sympathy.  His  rapturous  descriptions  of  his  own 
villas  in  various  parts  of  Italy  are  sincere  and  loving.  In- 
deed, Pliny's  longing  for  quiet  rustic  life,  and  delight 
in  natural  beauty,  inspire  his  heartiest  utterances. 
Such  a  graphic  sketch  as  that  of  the  head- 
Epist..  viii.,  8.      ^j^|.gyg  Qf  ^j^g  Clitumnus  might  remind  us 

yet  again  of  Ruskin,  in  a  happier  mood. 

Pliny  fully  appreciated  the  overwhelming  superiority  of 

Tacitus,  though  he  strove  to  believe  himself  the  second 

author  of  the  age.     "  I  prophesy,"  he  writes, 

Epist..  vii..  33.     ti^iy^^    yo^j,    histories    will    be   immortal: 

hence  the  greater,  I  will  frankly  confess,  is  my  desire  to 
be  inscribed  therein."  He  repeats  with  delight  an  anec- 
dote told  him  by  the  historian,  how  a  strange  gentleman 
sat  next  him  at  the  games.  After  varied  and  scholarly 
conversation  the  unknown  asked:  "Are  you  an  Italian 
or  a  provincial  ?"  "  You  are  already  acquainted  with  me 
through  my  works."  "  Are  you,  then,  Tacitus,  or  Pliny  ?  " 
The  story  may  have  been  slightly  modified  to  please  the 
eager  vanity  of  Pliny  :  and  the  fame  of  both  may  have 
been  chiefly  from  their  oratory. 

It  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  Pliny  has  posed  carefully 


THE   PLINIES  293 

before  his  mirror,  in  his  finest  attire,  with  his  best  side  dis- 
played. But,  as  a  friend  adds  :  ''We  may  well  be  grateful 
to  the  artist  for  such  an  ideal."  Like  Seneca,  he  shows 
real  and  extraordinary  tenderness  for  children,  slaves,  and 
dependants,  generally.  His  helpless,  corpulent  mother 
makes  a  single  striking  appearance,  sharing  the  boy's  aim- 
less flight  at  the  time  of  the  great  eruption.  Pliny's  child- 
lessness was  a  source  of  lasting  grief  to  him.  We  may  in- 
sert here  a  sincere  love-letter  to  his  wife  Calpurnia. 

"  You  will  not  believe  what  a  longing  for  you  possesses  me. 
The  chief  part  of  this  is  my  love  ;  and  then  we  have  not  grown 
used  to  be  apart.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that  I  lie  awake  a  great 
part  of  the  night,  thinking  of  you,  and  that  by  day,  when  the 
hours  return  at  which  I  was  wont  to  visit  you,  my  feet  take 
me,  as  it  is  so  truly  said,  to  your  chamber  ;  but  not  finding 
you  there,  I  return,  sick  and  sad  at  heart,  like  an  excluded 
lover.  The  only  time  that  is  free  from  these  torments  is  when 
I  am  being  worn  out  at  the  bar,  and  in  the  suits  of  my  friends. 
Judge  you  what  must  be  my  life,  when  I  find  my  repose  in 
toil,  my  solace  in  wretchedness  and  anxiety.     Farewell. ' ' 

Tacitus  is  not  by  any  means  the  only  friend  to  whom 
gentle  Pliny  looks  up  with  reverence.  The  heroic  old  Ver- 
ginius  Rufus,  who  had  twice  refused  the  crown,  could  have 
wished  no  other  hand  to  write  his  epitaph.  The  heroism 
of  Arria  and  her  kinswomen,  who  were  so  often  bereft  by 
judicial  murders,  is  described  in  affectionate  admiration. 

The  best  illustration  of  Pliny's  loyalty,  and  indeed  of  his 
rather  helpless  dependence,  in  responsible  place,  on  a 
firmer  will  or  a  larger  mind,  will  be  found  in  his  real  cor- 
respondence with  Trajan  during  his  stay  in  Bithynia,  His 
anxious  appeals  for  instructions  seem  to  include  nearly 
every  detail  of  executive  duty.  His  large-minded  master 
once  or  twice  suggests  to  him  to  rely  somewhat  upon  his 
own  discretion. 

Best  known,  for  special  reasons,  is  his  account  of  the 


294  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

pestilent  and  persistent  Christian  "superstition."  Already 
we  seem  to  see,  more  clearly  shaping  itself,  the  Roman  con- 
sciousness that  here  was  a  force  against  which  the  older  civ- 
ilization might  have  to  contend  for  its  very  existence.  The 
quiet  heroism  of  the  martyrs  baffled,  awed,  perhaps  filled 
with  remorse,  this  unusual  type  of  Roman  governor.  "I 
judged  it  necessary  to  endeavor  to  extort  the  truth,  by  put- 
ting two  female  slaves  to  the  torture,  who  were  said  to 
officiate  in  their  religious  rites,  but  all  I  could  discover 
was  evidence  of  an  absurd  and  extravagant  superstition." 
Again  we  are  reminded  that  a  new  time  is  dawning. 

Of  Pliny's  last  days  we  hear  nothing.  In  his  letters  to 
Trajan  there  is  no  allusion  to  a  return  to  Rome.  It  is 
simply  inferred  that  he  died  in  his  Asiatic  province,  or 
presently  after  his  arrival  in  Italy. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  elder  Pliny's  work  fills  six  volumes,  whether  in  Latin,  as  last 
edited  by  Detlefsen,  or  in  the  Bohn  translation.  The  latter  is  intel- 
ligent, and  has  also  copious,  rather  discursive,  foot-notes. 

Pliny's  letters  are  edited  for  our  schools  in  selections  only,  though 
neither  the  bulk  nor  the  quality  would  liinder  us  from  reading  them 
all.  For  the  non  classical  student  "there  is  a  very  faithful  transla- 
tion in  English,  by  Lewis  (Triibner),  and  a  more  readable  version  in 
Johnsonese  by  Melmoth,    revised  by  Bosanquet,  for  the  Bohn  series." 


CO 


O 


a 


y. 


71        U 


CHAPTEK  XXXIV 

CORNELIUS  TACITUS 
55(?)  I20(?)  A.D. 

This  great  master  of  style,  analyst  of  character,  and  aus- 
tere critic  of  life,  casts  a  long  shadow  backward,  and  has 
really  been  our  companion  ever  since  Augustus's  death. 
Indeed,  the  story  of  the  early  empire  can  never  be  read 
without  him.  Even  where  Tacitus's  own  records  have 
perished,  he  has  colored  the  opinions  and  expressions  of 
all  later  chroniclers.  Merivale's  large  picture  of  the  early 
empire  is  largely  Tacitean  in  its  outlines  and  gloomy  tints. 

This  author  has  often  been  likened  to  Carlyle.  More 
obvious  is  the  comparison  with  his  chief  classical  rival, 
Thukydides  :  for  each  of  these  two  recorded,  in  memorable 
form,  what  he  regarded,  no  doubt  with  much  truth,  as  the 
downfall,  almost  the  suicide,  of  his  own  people.  The 
Athenian  author  excels  in  self-control,  apparent  impartial- 
ity, energy  in  seeking  data  at  first  hand,  even  in  states- 
manlike breadth  of  view.  In  vividness,  quickness  of 
touch,  withering  power  of  cynical  analysis,  in  appeals  to 
the  sense  of  pity  or  indignation,  Tacitus  has  never  found 
his  master. 

We  are  tempted  at  times  to  see  a  perverseness  of  destiny 
in  the  fate  of  Athens.  Aristides's  rugged  honesty  had 
made  a  hundred  other  free  states  eager  to  organize  under 
Athenian  leadership.  Pericles  had  at  least  some  gleam 
of  inspiration  foreshadowing  the  principles  of  federation 
and  representative    government.     The  superior  strength 

295 


296  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

of  Athens  over  the  Dorians  in  arms  seemed  decisive  in 
420  B.C. 

A  few  more  years  of  peace,  and  the  swift  growth  of  com- 
merce and  wealth  might  have  reconciled  even  the  Corinthi- 
ans to  Athenian  hegemony.  Had  the  Fates  granted  Athens 
one  more  great  statesman,  or  prolonged  Pericles's  life  for  a 
decade,  or  merely  effaced  from  the  scroll  of  the  future 
Alkibiades's  career  or  the  Sicilian  expedition,  Greece 
might  yet  have  been  a  nation  indeed,  the  wonderful  Athe- 
nian character,  expressing  itself  in  drama,  music,  sculpture, 
architecture,  as  in  statecraft,  might  have  had  full  develop- 
ment and  lasting  vitality,  we  might  even  to-day  possess, 
or  be  possessed  by,  the  Hellenic  spirit  of  beauty,  instead 
of  groping  for  a  few  crumbling  fragments  from  her  silent 
tomb. 

Such  reflections  add  a  certain  tragic  pathos,  or  even 
epic  dignity,  to  Thukydides's  story  :  but  he  himself  hardly 
reminds  us,  save  in  a  few  passages  of  Pericles's  funeral  ora- 
tion, how  much  after-time  had  to  lose  in  the  great  struggle. 
Tacitus's  tone  is  infinitely  more  bitter,  even  despairing. 
Yet  we  do  not  fully  share,  for  ourselves,  his  consciousness 
of  irreparable  loss. 

The  Koman  rule  over  all  civilized  nations  was  far  more 
masterful  and  lasting  than  Athens's  control  over  her  little 
^gean  world.  The  Greek  elements  themselves  in  that 
comjiosite  later  culture  acquired  through  Rome  a  wider 
dissemination  than  even  an  Alexander  could  give  them. 
Civilization  to-day  for  its  essential  unity  still  thanks  the 
Cffisars. 

It  is  amazing  that  neither  the  convulsions  of  the  civil 
Nero  slain,  June,   wars,   nor  the  mad   follies   of  Caligula  and 
<**•  Nero,  nor  even  the  utter  anarchy  that  fol- 

lowed the  downfall  of  the  last  Julian  emperor,  enabled  a 
Qaiba.  otho,  vi-   single  subject  nation  to  regain  its  liberty. 
teiiius.  Tjie    legions    still    held    the   far    frontiers, 


CORNELIUS   TACITUS  297 

steadfast  against  Briton,  German,  and  Parthian,  while  four 

Vespasian    pro-  fierce  Eomans    vainly  clutched  the  crown, 

claimed,  July,  and  passcd  it  to  a  worthier  fifth,  within  lit- 

^'  tie  more  than  a  year. 

The  old  Koman  aristocracy  lingered  on.  Many  of  its 
members  enjoyed  great  wealth,  though  no  longer  in  politi- 
cal control.  Numbers  of  them  were  still  sent  out  to  recoup 
their  fortunes  as  provincial  governors.  Even  a  Senate  ex- 
isted, at  least  in  name. 

But  the  very  success  of  Rome's  conquests  had  made  her 
whole  world  ready  for  a  military  despotism.  The  rabble 
of  the  capital  could  no  longer  be  pushed  through  so  much 
as  the  decent  forms  of  election,  Republican  or  even  dem- 
ocratic ideas  still  lived  only  in  the  brains  of  philosophers 
and  visionary  doctrinaires.  Tacitus  accepts  the  empire 
much  as  Livy  did  :  as  a  desperate  necessity. 

Caligula  and  Nero  perished  by  just  vengeance,  wreaked 
for  atrocious  crimes.  But  the  utter  anarchy  of  the  year 
68-69  was  felt  to  be  worse  than  the  maddest  of  rulers, 
and  the  rude  soldier  Vespasian,  though  he  banished  the 
Stoics,  and  slew  the  fearless  patriot  Helvidius  Prisons, 
was  hailed  then,  and  is  still  considered,  the  saviour  of 
society.  The  great  military  machine  required  a  despotic 
master.  From  his  caprices  there  was  no  escape,  save  to  kill 
the  last  autocrat  :  and  try  chances  with  the  next. 

Meantime,  many  a  native  renegade,  shifty  Greek,  or 
Oriental  adventurer,  secured  limitless  wealth,  and,  for  the 
time,  unbounded  power,  by  winning  the  emperor's  affec- 
tion and  poisoning  his  mind  against  the  most  successful  of 
his  governors  and  generals.  The  very  Senate,  in  an  abject 
effort  to  show  its  loyalty,  usually  turned  like  a  hungry 
wolf-pack  upon  anyone,  even  of  their  own  number,  on 
whom  the  despot,  or  his  reigning  favorite  of  either  sex,  had 
glanced  with  hatred  or  suspicion. 

Such  is  our  general  impression  of  high  life  at  the  capi. 


298  THE   AGE   OF  SILVER   LATIN" 

tal,  from  Augnstns's  old  age  to  Domitian's  fall.  But  the 
last  three  years  were  by  far  the  worst,  so  Tacitns  assures 
us,  and  finally  crippled  the  whole  folk  beyond  recovery. 

That  this  century  was,  for  the  provinces  generally,  on 
the  whole,  a  relief  from  the  previous  age,  is  generally 
agreed.  The  system  of  spoliation  was  worked  more  mod- 
erately under  a  single  strong  executive.  That  even  in 
Italy,  in  Rome  itself,  there  still  lived  happy,  virtuous,  self- 
respecting  men  and  women,  we  must  believe.  Indeed, 
Pliny  seems  to  prove  as  much.  There  are  those  who  con- 
sider Tacitus's  delineation,  even  of  the  most  detested  of 
emperors,  to  be  utterly  distorted,  caricatured,  and  unfair; 
but  certainly  it  is  indelibly  stamped  on  the  imagination  of 
mankind. 

As  to  the  chief  outward  events  in  this  career  we  know 
very  little.     Neither  the  date  of  birth  nor  of  death  is  to  be 
pnny,Epist.,vii.,  ascertained.     Though  Pliny  once  mentions 
30, 3-4-  him  as  a  man  of  about  his  own  age,  Tacitus's 

political  career  indicates  that  he  was  some  years  older.  It 
is  only  a  natural  surmise  that  he  was  Quintilian's  pupil. 
He  must  have  had  good  social  position,  since  he  so  early  as 
78  A.D.  married  the  daughter  of  Agricola,  the  famous 
governor  of  Britain.  He  mentions  the  ac- 
ceptance of  honors  from  all  the  three  Flavian 

Annals,  xi.,  ii.  ,_,  . 

emperors.  That  in  88  A.D.  he  was  both 
praetor  and  one  of  the  fifteen  commissioners  who  conducted 
the  secular  games,  he  also  records.  When  Agricola  per- 
ished, in  93  A.D.,  Tacitus  was  absent  from  Italy,  we  know 
not  in  what  official  capacity.  In  97,  under  Trajan,  he  be- 
came consul,  and  delivered  a  notable  oration  on  the  most 
Pliny,  Epist.,  11.,  Venerable  and  illustrious  of  citizens,  Ver- 
'•  ginius  Rufus.     This  we  learn  from  Pliny,  a 

dozen  of  whose  letters  are  addressed  to  the  historian.  "  Of 
hia  good  fortune,''  says  Pliny  of   Rufus,  ''this  was   the 


CORNELIUS   TACITUS  299 

final  crown  :  the  most  eloquent  of  eulogists."  In  100  a.d. 
the  two  friends,  Pliny  and  Tacitus,  united  to  prosecute 
successfully  an  extortionate  governor  of  Africa,  Marius 
Prisons.  After  that  year  Tacitus  appears  to  have  retired, 
both  from  his  active  law-practice  and  from  a  political 
career,  to  devote  his  energy  to  composition.  All  his  ora- 
tions have  perished.  His  historical  works  were  published 
under  Trajan,  and  he  is  supposed  to  have  died  about  the 
close  of  that  reign. 

THE    LIFE    OF   AGRICOLA 

When  Tacitus  turned  from  political  and  forensic  oratory 
to  history,  he  developed  somewhat  gradually,  with  evident 
conscious  effort,  that  terse,  austere,  yet  extremely  effec- 
tive style  which  is  peculiarly  his  own.  In  parts  of  the 
"  Agricola  "  we  may  still  hear  the  rather  ornate  orator, 
and  even  catch  familiar  echoes  of  those  extravagant  fu- 
neral eulogies  whose  reckless  praise  had  annoyed  Livy. 

Though  not  published  until  after  Nerva's  death,  the 
cautious  skill  of  many  portions  suggest  that  they  were  com- 
posed for  Domitian's  jealous  eye.  The  essay  is  in  large 
part  a  sober  account  of  Britain  as  a  province.  Emphasis 
is  thrown  on  Agricola's  early  training,  and  later  his  eight 
years  of  faithful  command  in  the  British  Isles  ;  or  on  the 
promptness  with  which,  in  69  A.D.,  he  joined  and  materially 
aided  Vespasian,  who  had  himself  served  in  the  far  Western 
islands,  long  before  he  won  the  imperial  crown  by  high 
success  in  Palestine. 

The  skill  of  the  pleader,  even  a  certain  dramatic  fair- 
ness, is  to  be  heard  also  in  the  undoubtedly  fictitious  speech 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Galgacus,  the  gallant 
Agricola.  30-33.  British  chief.  Not  only  does  it  breathe  a 
spirit  of  patriotic  pride,  and  fierce  love  of  freedom,  but  by 
bold  touches  indicates  the  weakness  of  Roman   rule.     Of 


300  THE   AGE   OP   SILVER   LATIN 

the  heroic  Boadicea,  more  fully  treated  in  the  Annals,  we 
have   here  but  a  glimpse.      Agricola's  later  years  spent 
A    ,    ,     (,         in  inactivity  at  Kome,  daring  which  by  sub- 
missive self-effacement  he  escaped  Domitian's 

Annals,  xiv.,  31.  '■ 

deadly  ill-will,  are  lightly  touched  upon. 
The  rumor  that  Agricola  was  poisoned,  at  Domitian's 
order,  is  evidently  believed  by  Tacitus,  who  mentions  with 
sinister  emphasis  the  suspiciously  frequent  and  solicitous 
visits  of  the  court  physician.  The  death  of  Agricola 
was  just  at  the  beginning  of  Domitian's  final  triennium  of 
atrocious  cruelty.  Tacitus  is  thankful  that  he  did  not  live 
to  behold  ''  the  Senate  house  besieged,  the  massacre,  in 
one  havoc,  of  so  many  consulars."  The  historian  seems  to 
have  been  himself  present  in  those  days  in  the  Senate. 
,    ,    .  "  Our  hands   dragged  Helvidius  to  prison. 

Agricola,  45.  r\  ^ 

Ourselves  were  tortured  with  the  spectacle, 
and  sprinkled  with  the  innocent  blood — "  of  other  heroic 
victims.  "  Even  Nero  witiulrew  his  eyes  from  the  cruelties 
he  commanded.  Under  Domitian  it  was  the  chief  of  our 
miseries  to  behold  and  to  be  gazed  upon." 

While  Tacitus  is  both  courtly  and  sincere  in  his  praise 
of  Trajan,  his  tones  are  those  of  despair.  "  Now  our 
.    ,    .  spirits  begin  to  revive.     .     .     .     The    em- 

Agricola,  3.  nr 

peror  Nerva  united  two  things  before  in- 
compatible, monarchy  and  liberty.  .  .  .  Yet  from  the 
nature  of  human  infirmity,  remedies  work  more  tardily 
than  disease.  .  .  .  It  is  easier  to  suppress  genius  and 
industry  than  to  recall  them.  Sloth,  however  odious  at 
first,  becomes  at  length  attractive."  This  is  the  prevail- 
ing key,  to  the  end,  of  our  author's  utterance.  Whatever 
the  real  causes,  as  to  the  result  he  was  not  in  essential 
error.  He  was  himself,  in  literature,  the  last  great  Roman 
figure. 

The  one  purely  subjective  allusion  is  a  happy  one. 
Agricola  ^'when  consul,  contracted  his  daughter,  a  lady 


CORNELIUS   TACITUS  301 

already  of  happiest  promise,  to  myself,  then  a  very  young 
man  ;  and  after  his  office  expired  I  received  her  in  mar- 
riage."    Tacitus  seems  more  hopeful   than 
Pliny  as  to  a  future  life  :   "  If,  as  philoso- 
phers suppose,  exalted  souls  do  not  perish 
grcoa,4  .        yy[\]x  the  body,  may   you  repose  in  peace." 
Yet  like  his  friend  he  finds  the  chief  reward  for  merit  in 
a  lasting  earthly  memory.    "It  remains,  and  shall  remain, 
in  the  minds  of  men,  transmitted  in  the  records  of  fame 
through  an  eternity  of  years."     Certainly  few  brief  biog- 
raj^hies  have  better  deserved,  by  their  tactful  skill,  elo- 
quence, and  warm  personal  feeling,  to  accomplish  so  lofty 
an  end,  than  this  little   sketch  of  a  discreet  courtier  and 
provincial  governor   under  the   Flavian   emperors.      The 
name  at  least  of  Agricola  is  remembered  by  school-boys ; 
Verginius  Euf  us,  apparently  a  much  more  heroic  figure,  has 
utterly  perished. 

GERMANIA 

The  second   brief   monograph   appeared    "  in  Trajan^s 
second  consulship,"  i.e.,   98   a.d.      Tacitus's  silence  in- 
dicates that  he  does  not  speak  from  close  personal  knowl- 
edge or  extended  travel  in  German  lands.     "  This  is  what 
we  have  learned  (accepimiis)  concerning  the 

Qermania,  a8.  .     .  ,  j:       ti     -i       r^ 

origin  and  manners  of  all  the  Germans  in 
common,"  he  remarks  at  an  important  transition.  Cae- 
sar's Gallic  War,  Books  IV.  and  V.,  gives  us  the  earliest 
glimpse  of  both  our  ancestral  homes,  England  and  Ger- 
many. Livy  and  Sallust  appear  to  have  discussed  the  Ger- 
mans in  detail.  The  elder  Pliny's  twenty  books  have  been 
mentioned.  But  the  chance  of  survival  leaves  this  little 
essay  our  chief  source-book  still. 

While  Tacitus  sets  out  in  good  faith  to  delineate  "  the 
geography  and  ethnology  of  Germany,"  and  appears  to  be 
in  the  main  impartial  as  well  as  fairly  well  informed,  he  is 


302  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 

too  clever  a  rhetorician,  too  much  a  preacher  born,  not  to 
point  out  clearly  and  often  the  contrast  between  Germanic 
virtue  and  the  vicious  luxury  of  degraded  Latium. 
Qermania,  17-  "  Among  the  Germans  usury  is  unknown, 
37,  passim.  gold  and  silver  prized  no  more  than  clay. 
Dress  is  rude,  rational,  simple,  for  both  sexes.  Each  man 
has  one  undowered,  devoted,  faithful  helpmeet  for  life. 
Every  woman  cares  wholly  for  her  own  offspring.  There 
are  no  wills  or  legacies.  The  rude  tumuli  of  the  dead  are 
not  oppressed  with  sumptuous  monuments."  Such  asser- 
tions carried  their  own  antithesis. 

The  fondness  for  barley  beer,  for  martial  councils  and 
abundant  discussion,  the  continuance  of  family  feuds,  the 
acceptance  of  wehr-geld  for  all  crimes  of  violence,  even  to 
manslaughter,  the  shrill  or  thunderous  songs  of  the 
**  bards  " — these  are  all  truthful  touches.  The  belief  in 
the  sanctity,  wisdom,  even  supernatural  foresight,  of 
women,  seems  supported  by  passages  in  both  Caesar  and 
Strabo.  The  especial  sacredness,  and  use  for  augury,  of 
white  horses,  though  it  reminds  us  of  Persian  customs,  is 
also  probably  not  invented. 

As  a  whole,  however,  the  essay  is  unsatisfying,  even 
meagre.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  attempt  to  locate 
the  various  races  and  clans.  We  get  a  decided  impression 
that  the  Romans  knew,  with  any  accuracy,  only  the  Suevi 
and  neighboring  tribes  of  the  West,  with  whom  they  were 
in  constant  contact.  Yet  the  mere  mention  of  the 
Langobardi,    or    the   Angli,   is   of    historic 

Qermania,  §  40.      .         *  '  °    ' 

interest. 

THE    HISTORIES 

These  two  brief  essays,  by  the  side  of  Tacitus's  chief  task, 
take  on  the  appearance  of  mere  elaborated  episodes.  Indeed, 
the  general  account  of  Britain,  and  still  more  of  Germany, 


CORNELIUS   TACITUS  303 

did,  no  donbt,  relieve  his  chronicle  of  a  prolonged  digres- 
sion. 

The  master  work  of  Livy,  still  nnrivalled   in   popular 
favor,  had  covered  the  whole  of  the  Republican  period, 
and  half  the  reign  of  Augustus.     Tacitus,  after  some  vacil- 
lation,  selected    as   his  subject  the   early  empire,   from 
Tiberius's  accession  to  Domitian's  fall.     It  may  have  been 
more  than  a  courtly  compliment  when  he  pro- 
posed to  reserve,  as  a  happier  theme,  for  his 
okl  age,  the  story  of  Nerva  and  Trajan.   Certainly,  no  such 
bold  venture  ever  saw  the  light.     Nor  was  his  projected 
supplementary    account  of    Augustus   ever 

Annals,  ill.,  24.  .,,  "' 

Avritten. 
In  the  chosen  period  of  eighty-two  years  the  most  violent 
break  is  the  passing  of  Nero,  last  of  the  Julian  house,  with 
the  following  year  of  anarchy.  Tacitus  chose  to  begin  with 
the  second  section.  Indeed,  the  ' '  Annals  "  may  really  have 
been  an  afterthought.  The  "Histories"  are  on  a  very 
large  scale.  Our  manuscript  breaks  off  suddenly  about 
midway  in  the  fifth  book,  but  the  events  of  the  two  years 
69-70  A.D.  are  not  completed  even  then.  The  entire  work 
comprised  at  least  twelve  books,  probably  fourteen.  "We 
deeply  regret  the  loss  of  the  portion  on  Domitian's  time, 
where  Tacitus  spoke  with  fullest  knowledge.     Yet  such 

scenes  as  the  triumphant  entry  of  Vitellius 

Hist.il.,  88, 89.  ,  ,  .  n  1       •  •    4-     4-1         -i. 

and  his  savage  German  legions  into  the  city, 
the  pitched  battle  in  the  Campus  Martins  between  Vitel- 
lians  and  the  Flavians,  with  the  ferocious 
■    ''     '     *    rabble  looking  on  as  at  a  splendid  show  in 
the  amphitheatre,  are  unforgettable  pictures  by  an  eye- 
witness. 

As  to  Tacitus's  sources  of  knowledge  we  know  little. 

The  elder  Pliny  had  described  "  all  the  wars 

Pliny,  Letters,     ^j^^t  Rome  had  Waged  with  the  Germans." 

'*  **  Vipstanus  Messalla  and  other  elderly  friends 


304  THE    AGE   OF   SILVER   LATI]!^ 

of  the  historian  gave  him  freely  from  their  store  of  per- 
sonal memories.  Josephns  and  the  Old  Testament  he 
certainly  did  not  know,  when  he  wrote  his  incoherent  and 
mythical  account  of  the  origin  of  the  Jews,  tracing  them 
from  Crete.     In  general,  we  are  not  to  regard 

Hist,  v.,  2  ft.  m         •  1  1     •  • 

Tacitus  as  a  learned  investigator,  or  even  as 
a  man  of  remarkably  wide  intellectual  interests.  What  he 
tells  us  derives  its  chief  value,  rather,  from  the  alembic  of 
his  unique  mind,  its  charm  from  his  inimitable  utterance. 

THE   ANNALS 

This  title,  though  truthful  as  to  its  indication  of  the 

form,  is  not  used  by  Tacitus  himself.     The  work  is  clearly 

the  last  written,  at  least  of  the  extant  books.     Once  the 

"  Histories"  are  clearly  referred  to  as  already 

Annals,  xi..  II.     p^|3iighe(j_     The  sixteen  books  covered  the 

entire  period  from  Tiberius's  accession  till  the  year  69 
A.D.:  fifty-five  years.  But  Books  VII. -X.,  on  the  years 
31-46  A.D.,  including  the  whole  reign  of  Claudius,  are  lost, 
while  elsewhere  there  are  grievous  gaps. 

Here  all  the  qualities  of  Tacitus's  style  are  seen  at  their 
extreme.  His  incidents  are  selected,  and  treated,  with  a 
persistent  view  to  rhetorical  effect.  He  is  always  more 
artist  than  historian.  Cynical  comment  constantly  takes 
the  place  of  needed  elucidation  of  the  facts,  which  is  indeed 
often  curiously  lacking.  His  sources,  moreover,  have 
almost  wholly  perished,  leaving  him  master  of  the  field. 
Doubtless  he  made  use  of  the  meagre  acts  of  the  Senate, 
and  other  official  records.  But  it  is  quite  certain  that  the 
gossip  of  the  palace,  or  popular  tradition,  was  also  accept- 
able, if  it  suggested  an  effective  detail. 

The  account  of  Tiberius's  last  days  is  generally  considered 
our  author's  masterpiece.  The  general  story  of  the  Em- 
peror's self-exile,  the  usurpation  of  all  power  by  Sejauus, 


COENELIUS  TACITUS  305 

and  his  spectacular  overthrow,  which  inspired  some  of 
JuvenaFs  best-known  verses,  is  abundantly  authenticated. 
And  yet,  the  character  of  Tiberius  is  still  the  subject  of 
widest  disagreement.  In  truth  this,  like  many  another 
portrait  in  the  long  gallery,  is  regarded  as  a  creation  of 
artistic  genius,  which  may  or  may  not  be  a  fair  likeness. 

The  character  of  Germanicus  is  printed  in  far  lighter 
colors  than  Tacitus  elsewhere  uses,  as  a  contrast  to  his  grim, 
silent  uncle.  Even  the  eulogist's  account  of  his  actual 
deeds,  however,  fails  to  justify  the  exalted  position  as  a 
popular  idol  accorded  to  his  hero.  A  notable  modern 
painting,  by  Piloty,  has  made  us  familiar  with  Germani- 
cus's  triumph,  the  proudest  hour  of  that  prince's  life. 
Annals  ii   41       Descriptions  of  this  pageant  occur  in  both 

strabo,'vi'i.,p.     Tacitus  and  Strabo.     Yet  the  German  artist 
391. 

has  seen  clearly  how  little  cause  there  was  for 

Eoman  pride,  since    the  heroic   Thusnelda    is   a    captive 

through  her   own  father's   treachery,  and  her  dauntless 

husband  Hermann  is  still  unsubdued. 

Grave  as  are  the  gaps  in  his  two  chief  works,  Tacitus 
makes  upon  the  thoughtful  reader  an  adequate,  an  over- 
whelming impression.  The  world  may  always  see  the  first 
century  of  our  era  through  his  eyes.  There  is  much 
wisdom,  however,  in  the  impressive  protest  of  Professor 
Schanz,  against  putting  this  terrific  Vision  of  Sin  and 
Misery  as  a  whole  into  the  hands  of  youthful  students 
or  readers.  The  impression  is  as  gloomy,  almost  as  vivid, 
as  that  of  the  Inferno  itself.  The  finest  traits  of  Taci- 
tus's  wonderful  style  can  be  illustrated  sufficiently  by  de- 
tached scenes  and  passages,  some  of  which  are  in  compara- 
tively cheerful  tints. 


306  THE   AGE   OF   SILVER   LATIN 


THE   DIALOGUE    "  DE   ORATORIBUS 


j> 


A  problem  hardly  soluble  is  offered  by  the  graceful,  in- 
structive little  dialogue  "De  Oratoribus/'  or  rather,  "On 
the  causes  for  the  decay  of  oratory  under  the  empire." 
Transmitted  as  Tacitus's,  it  is  written  in  a  genial,  almost 
a  diffuse  style,  not -unlike  the  "  De  Oratore,"'  which  it 
frankly  imitates.    Furthermore,  certain  fear- 

■  *"'"'*•  P'  ■  less  allusions  to  unfavorable  conditions  make 
it  unlikely  that  the  little  book  saw  the  light  under  Do- 
mitian.  The  theory  that  it  is  the  missing  work  of  Quin- 
tilian  on  the  same  theme  is  exploded.  There  is  a  general 
agreement  that  it  is  Tacitus's  own.  The  last  American 
editor.  Professor  C.  E.  Bennett,  sets  its  date  so  early  as 
81  A.D.  Professor  Schanz,  however,  takes  the  other  horn 
of  the  dilemma,  and  assigns  the  essay  to  the  time  after 
Domitian's  death.  This  requires  the  supposition  that 
Tacitus,  while  acquiring  his  unique  historical  style,  retained 
also  at  command  what  we  may  almost  call  his  former 
dialect.  Pliny's  tasteless  oration,  and  most  graceful 
epistolary  manner,  are  sometimes  brought  forward  as  a 
parallel  example. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

There  are  translations  of  all  Tacitus's  works,  perhaps  as  satisfactory 
as  could  be  expected,  by  Church  and  Brodribb.  There  is  a  fine  edi- 
tion of  the  "Annals"  by  Furneaux,  of  the  "Histories"  by  Spooner. 
For  the  lesser  essays  there  are  numerous  school  editions.  Furneaux's 
"  Agricola"  and  "  Germania"  are  probably  the  best.  For  the  "  Dia- 
logues "  may  be  mentioned  especially  Gudemann'a  and  Bennett's 
editions. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES 

14     A.D.-117     A.D. 


Political  Events. 

A.D. 

14  Accession  of  Tiberius. 

15-16    Germaniciis  in  Germany. 

Sejanus     prefect      of     the 
Prffitorians. 

Germanicus's  triumph. 


17 

19 
23 

26 


Death  of  Germanicus  in 
Syria. 

Death  of  Drusus,  said  to 
have  been  poisoned  by 
Sejanus. 

Tiberius  withdraws  to  Ca- 
pri, never  to  return. 


A.D. 


Literary  Events. 


18        Death  of  Ovid  and  Livy. 


27-30    Ministry  of  Jesus. 


31  Fall  and  death  of  Sejanus. 


37  Death  of  Tiberius  at  Capri. 

Accession  of  Caligula. 
41  Caligula  assassinated. 

Accession  of  Claudius. 
43  Claudius  invades  Britain. 


54  Claudius  poisoned  by  Agrip- 

pina. 
Accession  of  Nero. 


59  Murder    of    Agrippina    by 

Nero's  order. 
61  Boadicea  rises  against  the 

Romans  and  is  defeated. 


34 
35(?) 


41 


43 
49 
50 


56 


Birth  of  Persius. 
Birth  of  Quintilian. 


Seneca's  "  De  Ira,"  i.-iii. 
Exile  of  Seneca. 
Birth  of  Martial. 
Recall  of  Seneca. 
Columella  born. 


Seneca  "  De  dementia,"  I.- 
III. 
Paul  to  the  Corinthians,   I. 


307 


308 


THE    AGE    OF    SILVER   LATIN" 


Political  Events. 


A.D. 


64 


Great  fire  in  Rome. 
Peraecution   of    the   Chria- 

tians. 
Building  of  Nero's  Golden 

House. 

65  Conspiracy  of  Piso  detected. 

66  (?)    Martyrdom  of  St.  Paul   and 

St.  Peter  at  Rome. 

68  Nero   slain.      Accession  of 

Galba. 

69  Death  of  Galba. 
Accession    and    suicide    of 

Otho. 
Accession  and  death  of  Vi- 

tellius. 
Accession  of  Vespasian. 

70  Titus  takes  Jerusalem. 
Helvidius  Priscus  exiled  and 

executed. 

71  Triumph  of  Vespasian   and 

Titus. 
75  Stoics  and  Cynics  expelled 

by  Vespasian. 


79  Death  of  Vespasian.     Titus 

emperor. 
Eruption  of  Vesuvius. 
78-85  Agricola  governor  of  Britain. 

80  Pestilence  and  fire  at  Rome. 
Arch  of  Titus  erected. 

84  Agricola    builds    chain    of 

forts  from  Forth  to  Clyde. 

90  Expulsion   of  the  philoso- 

phers from  Rome. 


96         Domitian  slain.     Accession 
of  Nerva. 
Consulate  of  Verginius  Ru- 
fuB  and  Tacitua. 


Literary  Events. 
A.D. 
63  Death  of  Persius. 


65 

66 

68 
69 


77 


79 


Death  of  Seneca  and  Lucan. 
Death  of  Petronius. 

Epistles  of  John,  I.,  11. 
III. 

Quintilian  appointed  by  Gal- 
ba professor  of  rhetoric. 


Pliny's     "  Historia     Natu- 
ralis"  dedicated  to  Titus. 
Death  of  the  elder  Pliny. 


85-102    Martial's  Epigrams,  I.-XII. 


92         Statius's  Thebaid. 
92-93      Quintilian  composes  his  In- 
stitutions. 

96  Funeral  oration  on  Vergin- 

ius by  Tacitus. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES  309 

Political  Events.  Literary  Events. 

A.D,  A.D. 

98  Death  of  Nerva.    Accession         98  (?)    Gospel  of  St.  John. 

of  Trajan. 
100  Forum  of  Trajan  built.  100  Pliny's  eulogy  on  Trajan. 

Consulate  of  I'liny. 

102  Martial  dies,  in  Spain. 

111-113  Pliny  governor  of  Bithynia.       Ill  (Sept. )-l  13  (Jan.)    Letters  from 

Pliny     in     Bithynia     to 
117  Death  of  Trajan.  Trajan. 


EPILOGUE 

The  very  greatness  of  Tacitus  emphasizes  his  loneliness, 
and  warns  us  that  it  is  time  to  close  this  volume.  Hardly 
more  than  a  pigmy  beside  him  stands,  as  an  historian, 
Suetonius  Tranquillus,  who,  like  Tacitus  and  Pliny,  a  law- 
yer under  Trajan,  lived  on  to  be  for  some  years  Hadrian's 
private  secretary.  Of  his  diligent  compilations  only  the 
*'  Lives  of  the  Twelve  Csesars "  survived  entire.  These 
gossipy,  anecdotic,  marvel-loving,  often  scandalous  ac- 
counts are  neither  history  nor  biography.  Their  style  is 
clear  and  simple.  They  are  even  in  a  way  restful  after  the 
**  Annals "  and  "  Histories,"  since  they  pretend  to  no 
elaboration,  no  dignity,  no  strenuous  moral  quality.  Sue- 
tonius does  not  rise  even  to  indignation.  Thus  his  account 
of  Domitian,  whom  he  knew  so  well,  is  distinctly  more 
lenient  than  the  passing  allusions  of  Tacitus,  or  even  of 
Pliny. 

Suetonius's  lives  of  Terence  and  the  elder  Pliny,  perhaps 
also  of  Horace  and  Lucan,  are  tolerably  preserved  in  con- 
nection with  those  authors'  own  works  or  comments  on 
them.  The  whole  volume  of  his  literary  biographies, 
from  Cicero  and  Sallust  to  Nero's  time,  would  be  valuable, 
if  extant,  though  it  too  was  rather  a  copious  and  early 
collection  of  the  traditions  than  a  work  of  research  or  judi- 
cious selection. 

Far  more  graceful  and  enjoyable  is  Aulus  Gellius,  who 
perhaps  acquired  in  Athens  his  genial  taste  and  sense  of 
form.  Almost  any  one  of  his  three  hundred  and  seventy 
essays  would  serve  as  a  daily  lesson  in  our  own  schools. 
The  average  length  is  hardly  four  hundred  words.     Archae- 

310 


MAIJCrS    AUKELIUS. 
Equestrian  statue  on  the  Capitoline. 


EPILOGUE  311 

ology,  history,  biography,  literary  criticism,  epitaphs,  an- 
ecdotes, etc.,  etc.,  make  his  "Attic  Nights"  anything  but 
monotonous.  Often  we  have  to  do  rather  with  a  student's 
scrap-book  than  Avith  an  author's  compositions  :  yet  Gel- 
lius's  erudition,  if  not  deep,  is  widely  gathered,  and  lightly 
carried.  Though  the  output  apparently  of  a  whole  life, 
all  the  papers  have  a  certain  youthful  Wander-year  tone. 
He  looks  reverently  backward  to  the  Catos  and  Varros  of 
a  greater  time.  In  short,  he  shows  in  amiable,  contented 
fashion  the  decay  of  the  intellectual  life. 

Gellius  likewise  illustrates  the  all  but  complete  fusion 
of  Greek  and  Latin  culture.  Suetonius,  Apuleius,  Ha- 
drian himself,  wrote  in  both  languages.  Marcus  Aurelius, 
on  the  Eoman  throne,  preferred  Greek,  even  when  touch- 
ing upon  subjects  of  purely  national  interest.  As  the 
organ  of  imperialism,  and  as  the  vehicle  of  culture  gener- 
ally, Latin  was  to  lose  ground  more  and  more.  Already 
Plutarch,  Arrian,  Lucian,  are  the  most  prominent  authors 
of  the  second  century.  The  removal  of  the  capital  left 
Rome  a  provincial  city. 

Under  Hadrian  lived  also  Annaeus  Florus,  perhaps  a 
countryman,  or  even  a  kinsman,  of  the  Senecas.  His 
panegyric  on  the  Eoman  people,  in  two  books,  is  not  in- 
deed a  mere  "  Epitome  of  Livy,"  in  which  character  it 
was  long  preserved  and  conned,  but  it  is  a  shallow,  care- 
less compilation,  much  below  Suetonius  in  quality. 

Unless  we  add  the  great  jurist  Gains,  who  made  his  di- 
gest under  Antoninus  Pius,  these  three  are  actually  the 
best  examples  we  can  offer  of  classical  prose  after  Tacitus. 
So  swift  is  the  descent. 

It  is  not,  indeed,  necessary  to  believe  that  the  Roman  or 
Latin  race  accomplished  national  suicide  in  the  days  of 
Tiberius,  Nero,  and  Domitian.  The  strong  and  righteous 
imperial  rule  of  the  second  century  a.d.  is  truly  Roman 


312  EPILOGUE 

still.  Large  as  was  its  creative  activity,  the  race  had 
never  even  claimed  artistic  supremacy.  Literature,  like 
all  plastic  arts  save  perhaps  architecture,  always  bore 
among  Eomaus  the  stigma  of  levity.  Gravitas,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  certain  majestic  self-respect,  has  been  rec- 
ognized as  the  most  striking  Koman  quality  that  pervades 
Latin  letters.  It  had  been  rudely  undermined  by  the 
loss  of  freedom  and  long  capricious  persecution.  Martial 
is  the  least  dignified  of  authors.  After  Tacitus  none 
regains  the  pedestal. 

That  alone  would  not  be  a  fatal  loss.  But  the  social 
life,  the  ethical  traditions,  the  very  speech,  of  Latium  had 
at  last  been  overwhelmed  by  the  motley  millions  that  had 
inundated  the  metropolis.  The  barbarians  arrived  long 
before  the  fourth  century,  and  not  in  hostile  arms.  The 
early  impact  of  Hellenism  had  perhaps  been  salutary  and 
even  needful,  to  bring  any  adequate  culture  or  fine  art  to 
rude  Latium.  But  now  the  creeds  and  superstitions,  the 
morality  and  the  immorality,  of  a  remoter  Orient  swept 
over  Italian  and  Hellenic  lands  alike.  The  greatest  names 
of  the  second  century  in  either  literature  may  serve  to  il- 
lustrate this  state  of  things. 

APULEIUS 

Lucian,  from  Samosata  in  Syria,  is  barely  half-Hellenic. 
He  knows  every  detail  of  the  outworn  Olympian  mythol- 
ogy, but  only  to  make  it  life-long  his  scoff.  In  the  auda- 
cious comic  sweep  of  his  ''True  Story"  he  combines  the 
Olympos  and  Hades  of  Homer  with  all  the  wilder  marvels 
of  Eastern  imagination.     He  himself  has  faith  in  nothing. 

The  tale  of  "Lucius,  or  the  Ass"  is  related  by  both 
Apuleius  and  Lucian,  at  very  nearly  the  same  date.  We 
are  told  that  it  was  not  original  with  either.  The  metamor- 
phosis there  described  could  have  found  no  place  even  in 


EPILOGUE  313 

frivolous  Ovid's  catholic  aggregation  of  snch  marvels. 
It  is  accomplished  by  no  intelligent  higher  power,  nor 
lias  it  the  slightest  moral  significance  as  a  retribution  or 
a  warning.  The  change  of  a  youth  into  a  donkey  is  a 
triumph  of  pure  magic,  of  witchcraft.  From  Horace's 
"Canidia,"  or  even  earlier,  Komaus  had  played  with  such 
miracles,  not  believed  in  their  possibility.  In  Lucian  the 
restoration  is  also  a  matter  of  pure  chance,  accomplished 
instantly  when  the  proper  antidote,  a  bunch  of  roses,  is 
touched.  In  such  a  fantastic  world  there  is  no  room  even 
for  the  slow  crude  justice  of  the  quarrelsome  Homeric  gods. 

Into  the  same  central  legend  Apuleius  has  interwoven 
nearly  a  score  of  other  widely  varied  tales.  Some  of  the 
robbers'  exploits  here  unfolded  recall  Herodotos's  Ehampsi- 
nitos.  More  than  once,  again,  lovers'  stratagems  might 
make  us  believe  we  have  opened  the  Decameron,  or  some 
yet  more  modern  volume,  by  mistake.  The  dragon  and 
the  sorceress,  equally  at  home  in  the  wonder-tales  of  ail 
lands,  appear  here  also. 

But  even  the  favorite  and  pathetic  Greek  myth  of  Cupid 
and  Psyche,  not  traceable  to  any  earlier  author,  though 
surely  not  of  Apuleius's  creation,  is  shot  through  with  the 
golden  threads  of  alien  fancy.  In  fact,  this  is  the  first 
appearance  of  the  modern  type  of  fairy-tale.  Psyche's 
home  is  not  located  at  all.  The  story,  told  by  a  villanous 
old  woman  in  the  robbers'  cave  to  divert  a  captive  girl, 
begins  simply  :  "  In  a  certain  country  lived  a  king  and 
queen  ;  they  had  three  beautiful  daughters." 

Apuleius  is  by  no  means,  like  Lucian,  destructive  of 
pious  belief.  Rather  is  he  to  be  counted  among  the  sin- 
cere devotees  and  mystics.  To  his  Lucius  the  great  god- 
dess Isis  appears  in  a  vision,  promising  the  long-tortured 
youth  his  release  from  the  hateful  bestial  shape.  The 
price  exacted  for  the  restoration  is  gladly  paid.  He  be- 
comes her  acolyte,  and  knows  no  such  remorseful  awaken- 


314  EPILOGUE 

iugas  Catullus's  Atys.  It  is  with  rapturous,  unquestioning 
faith  that  he  receives  the  greeting  of  Isis,  as  she  rises  out 
of  the  sea  in  her  mysterious  starry  splendor  : 

"  Lo,  here  am  I,  0  Lucius,  summoned  by  thy  prayers  ; 
I  the  parent  of  creation,  mistress  of  all  the  elements,  first 
offspring  of  the  ages,  supreme  among  divinities,  queen  of 
ghosts,  first  of  the  celestials,  the  form  unique  of  all  gods 
and  goddesses,  I  who  by  my  nod  accord  the  luminous 
summits  of  heaven,  the  healthful  breezes  of  the  sea,  the 
mournful  silences  of  the  under-world  ;  whose  divinity, 
one  in  manifold  forms,  with  various  rites,  under  diverse 
names,  all  the  earth  adores." 

Certainly  there  is  no  whisper  of  Lucian's  mockery  in  all 
this.  In  truth,  Apuleius  is  here  gliding  into  something 
very  like  autobiography.  An  African  by  birth,  educated 
first  in  Carthage — which  was  now  becoming  a  rival  of 
Rome  in  Latin  culture — and  later  in  Athens,  he  had  trav- 
elled widely,  and  was  himself  initiated  into  many  strange 
cults.  Even  Rome  could  not  hold  him  permanently,  and 
we  hear  of  him  last  as  again  in  Carthage,  and  a  priest. 
Such  is  the  life-story  told  us  of  the  next  "Latin"  author 
of  commanding  genius  after  Tacitus.  We  surely  seem  to 
have  stepped  into  another  world. 

The  whole  style  and  atmosphere  of  the  work  is  as  remote 
as  could  well  be  from  classicism.  Little  save  the  inflec- 
tions assure  us,  even,  that  we  are  truly  reading  Latin,  not 
Italian.  There  are  novel  words,  many  of  them  Greek,  not 
a  few  of  remoter  or  unknown  origin.  The  very  order  is 
modern.  The  shortened  sentence,  or  at  least  phrase,  of 
Seneca,  is  here  outdone.  In  the  artistic  changeful  prose 
of  Apuleius  we  begin  to  hear  the  rhymes  and  cadences  of 
modern  accentual  verse. 

But  above  all,  we  realize  that  in  this  age  the  conventions 
that  have  dominated  art,  and  life  as  revealed  in  art,  are  not 


EPILOGUE  315 

SO  much  violated  as  outlived  and  forgotten.  Behind  Isis 
and  Osiris  troop  the  myriad  other  forms  of  Oriental  be- 
liefs. Mightiest  of  all,  destined  soon  to  displace  Olympian 
paganism  as  the  orthodox  faith  of  the  rulers  and  of  the 
empire,  primitive  Christianity  is  essentially  Hebraic  and 
Eastern,  a  mystic  faith,  teaching  that  this  life  is  either  un- 
real or  in  itself  unimportant,  that  in  *' other-worldliness'' 
alone  lies  the  hope  of  salvation.  "Whether  preached  by  the 
Hebrew  Paul  in  Greek  cities  or  by  Latin-speaking  mis- 
sionaries among  the  Britons  and  Germans,  the  story  of  the 
rise  of  Christianity  is  certainly  no  part  of  Graeco-Roman 
letters. 

Not  merely  Tacitus,  who  doubted  whether  fate  or  mere 
chance  controlled  the  life  of  man,  but  Lucre- 

Annals,  vi.,  22'      ,  i  /^    ,     n 

tius  and  Catullus,  nay  many  a  fearless  thinker 

even  of  early  Greece  like  Heracleitos  and  Auaxagoras, 
had  indeed  cast  off  all  pretence  of  belief  in  Homer's 
undignified  divinities.  None  the  less,  certain  motives  of 
action,  a  common  conception  of  human  duty  and  divine 
rule,  had  dominated  alike  the  long  life  of  man  in  the  two 
lands  of  classic  culture.  A  decided  aversion  from  occult- 
ism, an  open-eyed  view  of  the  higher  powers,  a  hearty 
preference  for  this  world  over  any  casual  hope  of  blessed- 
ness elsewhere,  had  been  hardly  less  general.  Even  Plato 
undertakes  to  explain,  to  reduce  to  intelligible  order,  the 
eternal  forces  and  truths  that  he  descries  ;  while  Virgil  en- 
deavors, at  least,  to  guide  us  through  his  vague,  dim  under- 
world. A  certain  simplicity  and  completeness  of  form, 
dignity,  calmness,  and  even  reticence,  had  characterized 
nearly  all  the  best  work,  and  must  ever  be  associated  with 
the  word  classical. 

In  the  following  centuries  there  are  still  great  men  who 
reach  the  world's  ear  in  Latin  speech  as  well  as  in  Greek. 
The  largest  minds,  like  Augustine's,  are  most  completely 


316  EPILOGUE 

equipped  from  the  treasuries  of  Greek  and  Latin  antiquity. 
But  antiquity  it  is,  to  them  quite  as  truly  as  to  us ;  and 
while  we,  to-day,  are  above  all  desirous  once  more  to 
realize,  and  fully  to  profit  by,  our  unbroken  kinship  with 
that  remoter  past,  nearly  every  early  Christian  teacher,  on 
the  contrary,  felt  himself  drawn,  however  reluctantly,  into 
the  death-struggle  against  the  slow-dying  influence  of 
paganism.  But  that,  again,  is  certainly  too  large  a  sub- 
ject for  a  closing  page. 

As  was  said  on  a  much  earlier  leaf,  the  chief  gift  of 
Roman  letters  to  after-time  was  not  imaginative,  not  poetic 
inspiration  or  form,  but  rather  a  calm,  good  taste,  chiefly 
embodied  in  the  prose  style  of  Cicero  and  Livy,  Quintiliau 
and  Pliny,  to  which  Roman  power  and  speech  gave  a 
world-wide  currency. 

The  persistence  of  those  forms  in  the  intellectual  life  of 
Europe  is  no  less  wonderful.  Dante,  and  he  only  in  part, 
was  the  first  to  break  away  from  the  scholastic  tradition, 
and  write  serious  prose  essays,  as  well  as  poetry,  in  the 
''  vulgar  speech,"  that  is,  in  his  real  mother  tongue. 
Much  later,  if  not  even  to  our  own  day,  were  the  fully  in- 
flected Latin  forms  still  used  in  the  town-chronicles  and 
records  of  Romagna,  Tuscany,  and  Lombardy.  The  ritual 
of  the  great  mother-church  is  Latin  to-day.  American 
scholars  abroad  are  occasionally  reminded,  to  their  con- 
fusion and  mortification,  that  all  liberally  educated  men 
are  still  supposed  to  be  masters  of  Terence's  and  Tully's 
speech.  Though  so  profoundly  modified,  Latin  never 
died.  In  half  a  dozen  modern  languages,  among  which 
our  own  might  be  included,  the  words,  and  much  of  the 
spirit,  lives  on  in  a  continuity  that  has  never  been  broken 
for  a  single  generation. 

There  is  a  temptation  to  cite  at  least  a  few  among  the 
sweet-voiced  minor  poets  of  the  later  empire.     Verse  is  in 


n.VDHIAX. 
Antique  bust  in  the  Vatican. 


EPILOGUE  317 

itself  so  conventional,  that  the  vanishing  of  classical  Latin 
as  a  spoken  language  failed  to  break  the  Virgilian  tradition. 
So  Apollonios  Rhodios  had  imitated,  with  scholarly  accu- 
racy, the  Homeric  dialect,  which,  in  truth,  had  itself 
never    been    closely    representative    of    any    colloquial 

speech. 

But  not  one  of  those  later  singers  in  the  quantified  Hel- 
lenic rhythms  ever  had  a  great  popular  or  national  impor- 
tance, nor  will  one  of  them  be  successfully  revived  for  our 
own  interest  and  study.  In  so  far  as  they  were  classic, 
they  felt  their  own  utter  Inferiority  to  the  earlier  masters, 
Virgil  and  Ovid. 

Quantified  verse,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  intro- 
duced into  Latin,  not  without  difficulty,  by  Ennius. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  folk-song,  like  the  folk- 
speech,  never  heartily  accepted  its  fetters.  Certainly  the 
elaborate  ^olic  strophes  of  Horace  failed  to  reach  the 
popular  ear  at  all.  In  such  snatches  as  Hadrian's  address 
to  his  own  parting  soul : 

"  Animula  vagula  hlandula! " 

we  begin  to  hear  something  very  like  the  caressing  soft- 
ness of  Tuscan  verse  to-day. 

A  new  note  also,  perhaps  of  the  same  time,  is  heard  in  the 
song  for  Venus's  spring  festival,  with  its  hurrying  refrain: 

"Who  ne'er  loved  shall  love  to-morrow,  who  hath  loved  shall 
love  again  !" 

Yet  we  suspect  that  we  are  listening  to  a  much  later  voice, 
when  near  the  close  of  the  ninety-three  verses  the  nightin- 
gale is  heard,  and  the  poet  sighs  : 

"  She  is  singing,  we  are  silent.     When  returns  the  Spring  for 
me? 
When  shall  I  be  like  unto  the  swallow,  and  be  mute  no 


more? 


>» 


318  EPILOGUE 

Though  this  poem  is  still  accurate  in  its  quantities,  yet  the 
revival  of  the  trochaic  measures  clearly  aided  the  growing 
tendency  to  make  the  rhythmic  stress  coincide  with  the 
word  accent  of  prose.     Such  lines  as  : 

Et'  canoras  non  tactre  diva  jussit  dlites, 

(And  the  goddess  bade  the  tuneful  winged  creatures  not  be 

mute.) 
are   very  frequent :   yet   such  perfect  coincidence  could 
hardly  be  found  in  a  line  of  the  entire  ^neid.     Whether 
an  old  popular  measure  or  a  new  invention,   this  fore- 
shadows a  decisive  revolt  from  the  Greek  verse-forms. 

Certainly  the  more  popular  hymnology  early  began  to 
neglect  quantity  for  the  accentual  rhythms,  discovered  the 
resonant  effect  of  recurrent  end-rhyme,  which  in  Latin  is 
so  extraordinarily  easy  as  well  as  sonorous,  and,  in  general, 
assumed  the  forms  most  familiar  to  us  in  our  own  verse. 
But  as  these  magnificent  chants  like  the  ''  Dies  Ir^e  "  peal 
forth,  we  seem  to  have  turned  away  altogether  from  the 
cadences  of  Catullus  and  Virgil.  This,  too,  is  a  part  of 
the  long  story  of  another  day. 

It  is  a  curious  but  perhaps  inexplicable  fact  that  Dante's 
dearest  rival  in  youth,  Guido  Oavalcanti,  disliked  Virgil, 
while  Dante  himself  not  only  set  the  melancholy  Mantuan, 
"  who  through  long  silence  was  grown  hoarse,"  high  above 
all  other  poets,  conning  his  every  verse  until  he  had  learned 
it  by  heart,  but  actually  identified  the  Augustan  singer 
with  the  human  intellect  and  moral  virtue  itself.  Thus 
alone  and  against  utmost  opposition  did  Dante  descry  the 
full  significance  of  Roman  life,  and  letters,  to  that  modern 
world  of  which  he  is  the  chief  forerunner.  Across  the 
ages  he  and  Virgil  join  hands.  To  Dante,  as  to  us,  pagan 
Virgil,  and  even  Homer's  dim,  stately  shape,  were  nearer 
than  Augustine  and  Jerome,  the  chief  expositors  of  his 
own  creed. 


EPILOGUE  319 

However  fully  we  accept  the  spiritual  and  constructive 
teachings  of  Paul,  or  even  of  Augustine,  we  need  no 
longer  dread  the  fullest  irradiation  of  our  life  by  all  that 
is  true,  beautiful,  and  lasting  in  Latin  letters.  Other  and 
doubtless  larger  legacies  did  the  Roman  leave  us  ;  yet  this 
also  shall  abide  in  our  grateful  remembrance. 

As  Professor  Jebb  and  Professor  Mackail  have  remarked, 
it  is  a  Latin  versifier  of  the  late  empire,  after  all,  who 
utters  best  our  appreciation  of  Caesar's  supreme  accomplish- 
ment. A  poet,  himself  of  Egyptian  birth,  addressing  the 
Vandal  Stilicho,  who  through  the  weak  Honorius  ruled 
the  Western  world,  Claudius  Claudianus  thus  honors  Rome 
as  the  common  parent  of  civilized  men  : 

"She,  she  only,  has  taken  the  conquered  unto  her  bosom ; 
All  mankind  in  a  single  name  she  united  and  cherished  ; 
Not  as  a  queen,   but  a  mother,  she  citizens  made  of  the 

vanquished, 
Linking  together  the  far-off  lands  in  a  bond  of  affection. 
Now,  for  the  peaceful  ways  she  has  taught,   each  man  is 

indebted, 
While  he,  an  alien,  wanders  as  if  in  the  haunts  of  his  fathers. 
Now,  whichever  we  will,  we  drink  from  Rhone  or  Orontes, 
Since  mankind  is  a  single  nation. " 

Even  in  the  fourth  century  a.d.  we  can  hardly  believe 
that  the  wounds  of  the  conquered  races  were  all  so  fully 
healed  :  and  yet :  one  law,  one  peaceful  way  of  life,  one 
clear  speech  by  all  men  understood  :  It  seems  a  dream  of 
the  far-off  future,  a  prophecy,  as  of  Tennyson's  hopeful 
youth  in  '^Locksley  Hall."  We  too  readily  forget  how 
far  rough,  selfish  Rome  actually  strode  along  that  same 
path. 

FINIS. 


INDEX 


(Titles  of  books  in  italics) 


Accius,  see  Attius 

Actium,  56 

^lius  Stilo,  cited,  33 

^milius  Probua,  107 

^neas,  168 

^Mna,  75 

Africanus  the  Younger,  51,  69 

Agricola,  299-301 

Aischylos,  60  ;  Persians,  24 

Alkibiades,  296 

American  literature,  7 

Anacreon,  193 

Anacreontics,  194 

Ancyra,  152 

Annaeus  Florus,  311 

Antigone,  249 

Antonius  the  orator,  86 

Antony,  78 

Apollonios  Rhodios,  115,  171,  317 

Appendix  Vei'giliana,  174-6 

Appius  Claudius,  19,  62 

Apuleius,  312-14 

Archias,  76 

Archilochos,  193 

Archimedes' s  tomb,  74 

Ariadne,  122 

Aristides,  295 

Aristotle,  Poetics,  90 

Aristophanes,  48,  140 

Arria,  293 

Asconius,  253 

Asinius  PoUio,  151, 153,  164 

Astrology,  252 

Atellan  Farce,  19 

Athens,  295,  296 


Atticus,  82, 107 
Attius,  23,  88-9 
Augustus,  79,  141,  150-54,  158,  203, 

234,  304-5,  316 
Augustine,  94  ;  quoted,  97 
Ausonius,  cited,  282 

Bacchus,  129 

Bahrens,  Poetre  Latini  Mtnores,  8 
Baiter  and  Kayser,  Cicero,  72 
Ball,  Apokolokyntosis,  251 
Bennett,  C.  E.,  Tacitus's  Dialogues^ 

306 
Boadicea,  300 
Boissier,    Ciceron  et  ses  Amis,  72 ; 

Virgile,  177 
Bowen,  u^neid,  176 
Browning,  quoted,  93 
Brutus,  71,  82,  87,  115 
Biicheler,  Petronius,  113 

Csecilius,  49, 124 
Cffilius  Rufus,  77,  83, 116,  284 
CiBsar,  70,   75,  77,  81,   98-103,   105, 
139,  142 ;  Commentaries,  154,  301 
Caesar  and  ^neas,  169 
Caesars,  234 
Caesar  Strabo,  87 
Caesius  Bassus,  253 
Calhoun,  31 
Callimachos,  115, 125 
Calpurnia,  293 
Calpurnius,  256 
Calvus,  116,  120,  124 
Camilla,  173 


321 


322 


INDEX 


Canidia,  013 

Cartilage,  21 ,  51 

Castor  and  Pollux,  119 

Cato,  29-;n,  57,  71,  7G,  83;  cited,  15  ; 

quoted,  86 
Catullus,  114-125,  126,   215;    cited, 

13() ;  quoted,  153 
Cavalcanti,  318 
Celsus,  236-7 
Ceres,  129 

Christianity,  growth  of,  294 
Church    and    Brodribb,    Livy,   185; 

racitu.%  306 
Cicero,  51,  57,  78-97,  115,  124,  136, 

140, 142 ;  cited,  13,  15,  16,  24,  30, 

32,  36,  63,  159;  quoted,  53,  58, 107; 

De  Senectute^  31 
Cicero,  Marcus,  the  younger,  93 
Cicero,  Quintus,  83 
Ciceronian  age,  69-72 
Cinna,  the  poet,  125 
Ciris,  175 
Claudius,  245-6 

Claudius  Claudianus,  quoted,  319 
Cleon,  140 
Clodia,  77,  116 
Clodius,  71,77,116 
Clough,  quoted,  152 
Coelius  Antipater,  62 
Columella,  253 
Comedians,  38 
Comparetti,  quoted,  155;    Virgil  in 

the  Middle  Ages,  177 
Congreve,  208 
Conington,    Horace,    202;    Persius, 

2.59 ;    Virgil,  176 
Corinna,  206 
Cornelia,  219 
Cornificius,  85,  124. 
Cranstoun,    Catullus,  125;  Projjer- 

tius  and  Tilmllm,  222 
Crassus,  the  orator,  86 
Vulex,  158,  174 
Cupid  and  Psyche,  313 
Curtins,  Quintus,  253 
Cynthia,  217,  219 


Dante,  129,   135,  316,  318;    quoted, 

181,  268 
Daphnis,  163 
Darwin,  128 
Democritos,  127 
De  Oratoribus,  306 
Diodoros,  150 
Dionysios,  150 ;  cited,  13 
Biue,  175 
Domitian,  285,  300 
Druniann,  Oeschichte  Roms,  72 
Dry  den,  ^neid,  176 

Ellis,  Catullus,  125 
Emerson,  132,  133,  243,  344 
EnniuB,  29,  32-7,  53,  57,  58, 142 
Epictetos,  151 
Epicuros,  127,  132,  134 
Eris,  129 
Eros,  129 

Fannius  Strabo,  62 

Farrar,  Seekers  after  Ood,  251 

Fescennine  Comedy,  17 

Festus,  226 

Field,  Eugene,  quoted,  192;  Echoes 

from  a  Sabine  Farm,  202 
Fowler,  Julius  Ccesar,  103 
Friedliinder,   Martial,  279 ;    Sitten- 

geschichte  Roms,  279 
Frieze,  Quititilian,  286 
Fulvins,  34 
Fundania,  110 
Furneaux,    Tacitus's   Agricola    and 

Oermania,  306 ;  Tacitus'.s  Annals, 

306. 

Gains,  311 

Galgacus,  299 

Gallio,  239 

Oallus,  163,  166,  216-17 

Garda,  119 

Gellius,   310;   cited,  38,  39,  40,  58; 

quoted,  110 
Germanicus,  252,  305 
Gildersleeve,  Pcrsius,  259 


INDEX 


323 


Gracchi,  75 
Gracchus,  Gaius,  6!J-3 
Gracchus,  Tiberius,  56,  69 
Grattius,  224 

Hadrian,  317 

Hannibal,  172 

Harris,  Two  Tragedies  of  Se7ieca,  251 

Heine,  117 

Heitland,  Cicero's  Pro  Mnrena,  79  ; 

Lucan's  Pharsalia,  I,  271 
Helvidius,  300 
Hermann,  305 
Herodotos,  313 ;  cited,  101 
Hesiod,  165 
Hippocrates,  237 
Hirtius,  103 
Holmes,  O  W.,  191 
Horace,  53,  59,  186-202,  313;  cited, 

18,33 
Horace  and  Virgil,  186,  201 
Hortensius,  74,  115 
Hyginus,  225 

Ida,  122 

Ihne,  History  of  Rome,  8 

Iliad,  130 

lonians,  2 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  140 

Isis,  313 

Isis  and  Mithra,  235 

Jacob,  Manilius,  238 

Jeans,  Cicero's  Letters,  84 

Jebb,  319 

Jerome,  cited,  125 

Johnson,  Samuel,  278,  279 

Jonson,  140 

Josephus,  151 

Julia,  164,  213 

Julia,  the  younger,  213 

Justinus,  224 

Juvenal,  276-280 ;  quoted,  266 

Keil,  Cato  and  Varro,  113 
Kellogg,  Cicero's  Brutus,  88 


Kelsey,  Lucretius,  136 

Kiepert,  Classical  Atlas,  8 

Kiessling,  Horace,  2'<fii 

King,  Henry,  Metamorphoses,  214 

King,  J.  R.,  Cicero's  Philippics,  79 

Knight,  History  of  England,  180 

Laberius,  Decimus,  138-140 

Lachmann,  Lucretius,  136 

Lselius,  51.  52 

Latin  Iliad,  256 

Latium,  4 

Lawton,  Catullus  and  his  Friends, 
125;   Virgil,  111 

Lentulus,  116 

Lesbia,  116,  206 

Lewis,  Juvenal,  279;  PUny^s  Let- 
ters, 294 

Licinius,  21 

Licinius  Macer,  124 

Lincoln,  75 

Livius  Andronicus,  21 

Livy,  4,  13,  15, 16, 24,  29,  30,  31, 154, 
178-85,  301. 

Livy  and  Virgil,  178 

Long,  Cicero's  Orations,  79 

Longfellow,  quoted,  204 

Lounsbury,  Chaucer,  97 

Lucan,  239,  260-262 

Lucian,  109,  312 

Lucilius,  60-62 

Lucius,  or  the  Ass,  312 

Lucretius,  4,  126-36,  238 

Lucullus,  71 

Lydia,  175 

LygdamuB,  222 

Lysias,  115 

Mackail,  319 ;  cited,  177 
Macrobius,  cited,  107 
Maecenas,  153 
Magia,  157 
Malius,  see  Manilius 
Mallius,  see  Manilius 
Mallock,  lAicretius,  136 
Manilius,  237-38 


324 


INDEX 


Marcclla,  276 

Marccllus,  196 

Marcellus,  the  younger,  219 

Marcus  Aurelius,  150,  151,  311 

Marius,  70,  150 

Marius  and  Sulla,  56 

Marius  Priscus,  299 

Markland,  Statius's  Silvce,  271 

Mars,  128 

Martial,  118,  152,271-0,  313;  cited, 

108;  quoted,  179 
Martin,  Sir   Theodore,  quoted,   117, 

196  ;   Catullus,  125  ;  Horace,  202 
MasBon,    Atomic  Theory  of  Lucre- 
tius, 136 
Matius,  83 
Mayor,  Cicero's  Be  Natura  Beorum, 

97 ;  Juvenal,  280 
Medea,  209,  349 
Meister,  Quintilian,  286 
Melmoth,  Pliny's  Letters,  294 

Memmius,  116,  136 

Menander,  55 

Menipjjos,  109 

Merivale,  295 

Merrill,  Catullus,  125 

Merry,  Fragments  of  Roman  Poe- 
try, 37 

Messala,  220,  225 

Middleton,  Life  of  Cicero,  73 

Milo,  71,  78,  104 

Milton,  131 

Mimnermos,  215 

Mimus,  137-140 

Minos,  122 

Moberly,  Caesar's  Civil  War,  103 

Moliure,  48 

Molon,  73 

Mommsen,63,73,152;  cited,  103,113 

Aforetwn,  176 

Morgan,  M.  H.,  Phormio,  55 

Morris,  yErieid,  176  ;  Jason,  265 

Miiller,  Lucian,  Lucilius,  63 

Munro,  H.  A.  J.  Lucretius,  136 

Murena,  76,  196 

Myers,  Virgil,  177 


NiBviuB,  24-27,  56,  60, 139, 143 

Napoleon  III.,  Cccsar,  103 

Neaera,  221-22 

Nemesianus,  257 

Nepos,  107-08 

Neptune,  129 

Nero,  246,  247,  248 

Nerva,  300 

Nettleship,  Latin  Lives  of   Virgil, 

176 
Niebuhr,  quoted,  155 

Octavian,  see  Augustus 
Odysseus,  23 
Odyssey,  quoted,  69 
Oriental  religions,  315 
Ovid,  303-14  ;  quoted,  116 
Ovid  and  Homer,  205 
Ovid  and  Lucretius,  311 
Ovid  and  Shakespeare,  312 

Pacuvius,  58 

Paris,  171 

Parkman,  106 

Parthenios,  135,  310 

Patin,  Etudes  sur  la  Poesie  Latine, 

8 
Patro,  136 
Paul,  204 

Paul  and  Seneca,  240,  251 
Peabody,  A.  P.,    Translations  from 

Cicero,  96 
Peck,  Trimalchio's  Banquet,  358 
Peck  and  Arrowsmith,  Roman  Life 

171  Latin  Prose  and  Verse,  227 
Peleus,  123 
Pericles,  140,  295 
Persius,  257-8 
Peter,    Historicorum    Romanorum 

Fragmenta,  154 
Petrarch,  96 
Petronius,  354-6 
Phaedrus,  237 
Phidias,  140 
Plato,  133,   135,    315;   quoted,   94; 

Republic,  90,  93 


INDEX 


325 


Plautus,  3S^8,  51 ;  cited,  25 

riinies,  387-295 

riiny,  278  ;  cited,  298,  303  ;   quoted, 

235,  298 
Plutarch,  150;  cited,  16 
Poggio,  96  ;  (JuiHtilian,  286 
Pollio,  see  Asinius 
Polybios,  cited,  29,  52, 13 
Pompeius  Trogus,  224 
Pompey,  70,  74,  81,  99,  171 
Poraponius  Mela,  253 
Pomponius  Secundus,  250 
Pope,  Thebaid,  271 
Preston,  Miss  H.  W.,  Georgics,  176; 

Horace,  202  ;  Statius^s  Silvae,  271 
Priapea,  224 
Propertius,  200,  217-20 
Propertius  and  Horace,  218 
Publilius  Syrus,  137-8 
Pyrrhus,  21,  35,  63 

Quintilian,  281-86  ;  cited,  84,  102, 
178 ;  quoted,  250,  262 

Racine,  140 

Ramsay,  Cicero's  Pro  Cluentio,  79 ; 
Elegiac  Poets,  233 

Reber,  Vitruvius,  327 

Regulus,  292 

Reid,  Cicero's  De  Finibus,  97 

Ribbeck,  cited  379;  Fragmenta 
Comicorum,  9 ;  Fragmenta  Tragi- 
corum,  9;  Geschichte  der  Rd- 
mischen  Dichtung,  8,  2'ii,  27 ;  cited, 
113,  177  ;  Romische  Tragodie,  27 

Rome  and  the  provinces,  269-70 

Romulus,  168 

Rose,  Vitruvius,  227 

Ruskin,  289,  292 

Sainte-Beuve,  Virgile,  177 
Sallust,  104-6,  301 ;  cited,  69 
Sappho,  195 

Sappho  and  Alcaios,  193 
Saturnian  Metre,  19 
Scaevola,  84 


Schanz,  63,  305  ;  Geschichte  der  Rd- 
mischen  Litterattir,  20;  cited,  30 

SchUler,  149 

Scipio  Barbatus's  epitaph,  17 

Scipios,  39,  50 

Sejanus,  304 

Sellar,  cited,  207 ;  quoted,  123 ;  Ju- 
venal, 280  ;  Martial,  279  ;  Roman 
Poets,  8,  37,  63 ;    Virgil,  177 

Seneca,  239-51,  286 ;  cited,  178 

Seneca  the  elder,  225,  237 

Servius,  34 

Shakespeare,  Comedy  of  Errors,  48 

Shorey,  Paul,  cited,  130 ;  Horace, 
202 ;  Lucretius,  136 

Shuckburgh,  Cicero's  Letters,  84 

Sicily,  21 

Silius  Italicus,  263-4 

Simcox,  History  of  Latin  Litera- 
ture, 8 

Sinkiewicz,  Quo  Vadis,  271 

Sirmio,  119 

Smith,  Goldwin,  Bay  Leaves,  136 

Sophocles,  140 

Spartans,  3 

Spengel,  Varro,  113 

Spooner,  Tacitus's  Histories,  306 

Statius,  265-9 ;  quoted,  156 

Stesichoros,  168 

Strabo,  150  ;  cited,  305 

Stuart,  Sallust,  108 

Suetonius  310 ;  cited,  154, 165,  361 

Sulla,  150 

Sulpicia,  222 

Sulpicius,  71,  76,81,  84 

Tacitus,  233,  295-306, 310 ;  cited,  108, 
179,  250,  355,  361,  292 

Tacitus  and  Pliny,  292 

Tennyson,  133, 134, 136,  319  ;  quoted, 
117,  157 

Terence,  29,  49-55,  103 

Terquem,  La  Science  Romaine  d 
VEpoque  d'Auguste,  227 

Teuffel,  History  of  Latin  Litera- 
ture, 8 


326 


INDEX 


Thackeray,  187 
Theocritos,  163 
Thetis,  122 
Thorwaldsen,  149 
Thukydides,  101,  295,  296 
Thusnelda,  305 
Tiberius,  233,  304 
Tibullus,  197,  306,  220-222 
Tibullus  and  Catullus,  221 
Tibullus  and  Horace,  221 
Tibullus  and  Virgil,  221 
Tigellinus,  255,  256 
Titus,  273,  287 
Torquatus,  120 
TroUope,  Cccsar,  103 
Tullia,  81 
Tullius  Tiro,  90 
Twelve  Tables,  14 

Tyrrell,  (Jicero's  Letters,  84  ;    Latin 
Poetry,  176 

Valerius  Cato,  123,  175 
Valerius  Flaccus,  264-65 


Valerius  Maximus,  237 

Valerius  Probus,  252 

Varro,  109-13,    cited,  15, 40 

Venus,  128 

Verginius  Rufus,  193,  301 

Verres,  74 

Verrius  Flaccus,  226 

Virgil,  152,  155-77,  315;    cited,  15, 

44,  264  ;  quoted,  5, 141 
Vitellius,  303 
Vitruvius,  225 
Voltaire,  cited,  201 

Watson,  Cicero's  Letters,  84  ;  Quin- 

tilian,  286 
Weimar,  140 
Weissenborn,  Livy,  185 
Wilkins,  Cicero's  De  Oratore,  88 
Windelband,  94 
Winthrop,  John,  54 
Wordsworth,  130 

Xenophon,  143 


J^ 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


Poi 


-..r 


^^^^■^i;.r<"«' 


M^' 


L    UGZ.ybi^uuu    vv 


Ainiovd  AHvaan  ivNOioBd  NyaHinos  on 


